This Is Me Surviving
by MotherHeninFlorida
Summary: There are plenty of stories of what happens during a pandemic but what comes next. Kiri has issues, she'll be the first to admit it. There's reasons but for now there are other things to deal with. Like just trying to survive. Kiri is alone in the world but she has a place she wants to be, a place she needs to be. This is her story.
1. Prologue

Prologue

I'm precocious and a bit of a dreamer; at least that is what my foster parents and teachers used to say. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever dream this kind of nightmare would come true. Oh sure, who hasn't dreamed that some crazy thing would come along and Mad Max would rule the world? But for real?! No, this kind of stuff was only supposed to happen in fantasyland; or if it did happen it was supposed to be far in the future and happen to some other more deserving people. It wasn't supposed to happen to me.

I'm not even sure why I'm writing except that it gives me something to do while I wait out the rain. I mean, if I'm going to be stuck in this stupid storage building I gotta do something to keep from freaking out. When I'm walking I'm too busy keeping my feet from tripping over stuff and too tired from carrying this big backpack to really think about all the junk that has happened. But now that I don't have that to keep me busy it's real easy to get scared. I had enough of that yesterday trying to avoid those creeps that were probably only after you know what.

That stupid grief counseling that the court mandated I go to gave me the idea. It isn't that the counseling was stupid but it sure seemed like some of the counselors were. For a while afterwards I was a real brat and the counselors only made me feel like being brattier. Is brattier even a word? Geez I miss spell check. And my laptop. Writing by hand stinks.

Anyway some of the counselors always struck me as being so holier than thou. When I would get mad after listening to them lecture me about my "behavioral problems" I would ask them what their loss had been that gave them the right to tell me how I should be acting. They would answer, "We aren't here to talk about me. We are here to help you." That was nothing more than adult doublespeak that said they hadn't ever experienced anything like I was going through but that they still knew what was best for me … even though nine times out of ten they didn't know jack.

But there was this one guy. He was kinda young but old enough that he didn't do the stupid fake "friend" thing. He knew what loss really was. His dad died during the First Gulf War and he lost a brother in Afghanistan. But he wasn't anti-military or anything which was better because my Dad had been military. Mr. Kramer … that was the guy's name … is the one that talked me into starting a journal. He said that a journal was kind of like a dumping ground for stuff that builds up inside you. It gives you a place to take it out and examine it to make sure what you are feeling is for real or gives you a place to put down things you don't want to forget. I really liked him but not the way all the other staff thought I did. It was more he was a person I could respect because his opinions and suggestions were based on real life experience and not something that he got out of a book. He understood in a way all those other jokers didn't. The administration in its great and infinite wisdom was suspicious because my chart showed I was improving with him when I never did with any of the other schmucks so of course they reassigned me to some other counselor that didn't have a clue what to do with me or for me. Then they spent weeks trying to figure out if there had been an "inappropriate counselor-client relationship" between me and Mr. Kramer. I really wanted to make a stink but I was afraid to make things harder on Mr. Kramer than they already were. Talk about a bunch of jerks. He finally had to quit and go to work someplace else. Just one more loss in my life and it only made me hate that stupid counseling center even more.

When I was accepted to the IB program at the highschool I was finally able to stop going to "counseling." They called me "cured" and I called me tired of talking about my feelings to other people that didn't have a clue. Either way we were all off the hook and could back to our regularly scheduled programming. But the journal idea is a good one. It helped me then so I hope this one helps me now.

After I made my decision to hit the road I read that old journal. I can't believe I kept it all that time; it sure was a pain to keep hidden from the other kids. It was kind of like a security blanket I guess. But so many other awful things have happened that those feelings weren't security anymore; they felt like a weight and I had to decide to dump them to make room for all the other things going on. One of the hardest things I've ever done, next to burying my family, was burning that journal. I read it one more time, put a match to it and then gave it its own burial in a hole I dug in one of the flower beds that surrounds the building where all us kids were being warehoused.

So here goes. First you are supposed to identify yourself and take ownership. That sounds stupid but I guess it would be more stupid to not do it that way.

My name is Kiri Michelle Snow, I'm sixteen years old and the world as I knew it has come to an end.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is a little weird and hard for some people to say apparently. I always hated the first day of school or days when I had substitute teachers because they never said it right. It's a family name and has been passed down for a lot of generations. I'm Kiri Michelle. My mom was Joyce Kiri. My grandmother got the name from a sister that had died when it was a baby and she was the oldest girl so it was her job to name one of her kids Kiri to keep the tradition going. My great grandmother was Malissa Kiri. Her mom was Kiri Emmaline. It keeps going back a couple of generations from there. It's all in this big Family Bible that belonged to my great great grandmother, the one called Kiri Emmaline.

No one knows where the name really comes from but I've always thought that some illiterate ancestress thought it sounded pretty and named her kid that and that kid was so hacked off that she decided to doom the next eleventy dozen generations to the same torment she had to suffer. Anyway, the way you pronounce my name isn't "carry" or "curry" or anything like that. It is "key ree" with the emphasis on the "ree" part. Sort of like Marie only "key" instead of "ma." I've never figured out why that is so hard for people. You'd think with all the weird names people give their kids lately that mine would be an easy one.

Since my mom got to pick my first name my dad got to pick my middle name. Unfortunately for me he was a Beatles fan even when the Beatles weren't cool anymore. So yeah, I'm named after that stupid song.

I really miss my family. They died when I was twelve. We were coming back from one of my brother's little league games when a drunk driver crossed the line and hit us head on. Everyone said that there was nothing my mom could have done. It all happened too fast. Sometimes I wonder though if Daddy had been the one driving if maybe he could have saved us. I'm not mad at my mom or anything but it is the kind of thing you wonder about when you are stuck in the hospital for six months. I didn't get to see where my parents and brother were buried for a long time. I didn't even know they had died for a while because I was in a coma. I used to wish that somebody would have tripped over a cord back then and unplugged me. I'm passed that part but not passed the part where I miss them. In a way I hope that part never goes away. I think not missing them would somehow be worse.

Most kids when they become orphans go to an aunt or uncle or their grandparents. I didn't get so lucky. We didn't live near any of our family. My dad was stationed at MacDill AFB in Tampa, FL when the wreck happened and all our family was up in Kentucky and Tennessee where my folks were from. I was born at Ft. Campbell Army Base but only kind of on accident. My brother was born four years later in San Antonio, TX. We didn't move around a lot compared to some military families I guess. We lived in a nice little house in a kind of run down subdivision but everyone looked out for everyone else as a lot of them were military families. I had enough friends to keep me busy and I was doing really well in school. They wanted to bump me up a grade a couple of times but Daddy never let them; he didn't want me hanging around kids that were too much older than me, especially some of the boys from our neighborhood.

There wasn't a lot of money 'cause Daddy wasn't an officer but there was enough that my brother and I could join a few extracurricular activities like Little League and scouts and stuff like that. Mom worked part time as a seamstress and part time at this placed called JoAnn Fabrics to pay for things that my dad's paychecks couldn't cover right away like school field trips, our vegetable garden and canning supplies, and extras for Christmas and birthdays. She made most of our school clothes and our play clothes were generally hand me downs from our cousins. We didn't mind because that was just the way we were raised and we weren't really old enough yet to get picked on because our clothes didn't have fancy labels in them.

Daddy inherited some money when his mom died – that was another sad time – but that was all invested in what Daddy called his and Momma's "retirement home." It was forty acres up in the middle of nowhere Florida, the nearest real town this place called Live Oak, if you could call Live Oak a real town. It wasn't bad, it had a super Walmart, it just wasn't anywhere close to having all the stuff Tampa had which was the whole point according to my parents. Then Momma's mom and dad died back to back. My Memaw died of colon cancer and everyone said my Granddaddy died of a broken heart six months later. Momma's brother and sister didn't want the farm so everything went on the block that no one else in the family claimed. Momma got a bunch of stuff she called family heirlooms that my aunt and uncle just called old "old junk." My uncle got the little red tractor that they always called the "A" for some reason. My aunt got a car and her son got the farm truck. After the auction, the taxes were paid off and what was left was split three ways.

With both of their inheritance money, they finished paying off the land, set up savings accounts for my brother and I and then Daddy and Momma built a house, barn, and shed just like they wanted, doing most of the work themselves. All of our vacations and long weekends were always spent up there working on the place. Sometimes family would come down and go hunting or fishing too. Momma called it "Sparkleberry Ranch" after these wild berries that grow all over the place on the land. That's where I'm headed as soon as this stupid rain lets up.

The reason I didn't get shipped off to my parents' family was because I was sick in the hospital for a long time and had lots of "problems" after the accident. Some lawyer had also gotten himself signed up to be my guardian ad litem and he took the drunk drivers insurance company to the cleaners on my behalf. In the process a lot of other people got into my business too and that meant that most of my family was declared ineligible to be my guardians. The only one that made it through their "screening process" was some cousin of my Dad's who lived in Tampa and who was already a state-qualified foster parent with years of experience with "troubled kids." I had to call her Aunt Wilma and her husband was Uncle Charlie. They weren't bad people, they just weren't my parents. I know I gave them some grief. I'm sorry for that now mostly; they just believed things that were so different from the way my parents believed and they tried to cram what Daddy used to call "all that new age, feel good ****" down my throat too much. All for my own good of course. And for the record I really don't challenge authority like they used to say. I just think I should be allowed to have my own opinions. I'll follow the rules, I just don't always agree with the rules and I have a bad habit about it showing.

Anyway, about that money. It was all put into this trust and I don't think I've ever really seen a dime of it, not really, not that I could put in my hands. The money was used to maintain Sparkleberry Ranch and to pay for a week's vacation up there every year by Aunt Wilma, Uncle Charlie and whatever foster kids were living with them at the time. I dreaded and loved that week every year we went. Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie also got paid for taking care of me which didn't help with my "feelings of resentment."

During that week it hurt to see someone else "living" in my parents' house but at the same time I got to go back and live there and touch all of my parents' stuff which made me feel like they were closer. I know they weren't really there; Dad didn't go for that ghosty-ghouly stuff. I was "brought up in the church" until I had to go live with Aunt Wilma who had a thing for stuff my parents wouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole. One of the beefs I always had with Aunt Wilma is that because I refused to go to what she called a church she wouldn't let me go to what I called a church. It sounds worse than it was but it still made me mad sometimes.

Between the so-called group vacations some local guy came by once a month to bush hog the long dirt road that leads back to the house, around the house itself and in the orchard and the fire break that goes around all forty acres. Personally I think he let that last bit slide most of the time because the saw briers had taken over the five-strand barbwire fence that enclosed the property last time I was there. I guess you get what you pay for and this guy really wasn't getting paid much if you listened to him complain. I know for a fact he got paid for fuel and labor plus he got to keep the Bahia hay off of the road and the three acre hayfield that is in the middle of the heavily wooded acreage because the lawyer always made me sit and listen to the yearly accounting of expenses. The rest of the money is supposed to be in some kind of secure investment account but I haven't a clue whether it exists anymore and even if it did if the money is even worth anything.

I learned to live with the way things were. My original plan was to get my emancipation when I turned sixteen but I found out that there were all of these requirements to be able to prove I could support myself and of course I couldn't with the way things were tied up. So I changed my plan. I would wait and go away to college and then I could figure out what I was going to do with my life and no one could tell me what to do if they didn't like what I decided. It doesn't look like it is going to turn out that way either.

The problems weren't big at first. I had to listen to Uncle Charlie run his mouth all the time at the dinner table about what was wrong with this country. Of course everything he thought was a problem my parents had thought was what made us Americans and made the country great. It was like Uncle Charlie had made some kind of project out of me, constantly bombarding me with crap about the "hope and change" and how it was our moral duty to make sure the distribution of wealth in this country was fair. To say I didn't agree with him would be the understatement of the century but most of the foster kids ate it up like candy. So stupid. Sometimes I agree when adults say teenagers don't know their own minds. Some of the kids I went to school with didn't even act like they had their own mind half the time so they borrowed the thoughts of other people to make up the difference.

See I look at it like this. There were kids in the school where I went that always got things they didn't earn because it made the school as a whole look good. Some of the jocks got graded on the curve so that they could play even though they hadn't really earned the grade that showed up on their report cards. Some of the rich kids got special attention because of who their parents were. The PTA parents' kids always got what they wanted because their parents were the squeaky wheels and made the most noise. Some of the kids were given labels because that was easier than making them follow the rules or live up to their full potential. There was always an excuse for why the rest of us had to give up things so that other students could have a "fair deal" they didn't do anything to earn. What was going on in the adult world may have been called socialism, special interests, lobbying, or other stuff but it all boiled down to the same thing … excuses; big fat excuses why people didn't have to be graded on their own work.

Then came the pandemic. Holy geezly crow. Some of the adults acted like nothing was wrong and that the people dying were just made up like scare tactics. Other adults acted like the Plagues of Egypt were about to return. Most of us kids weren't sure who to believe. Of course what we thought really didn't matter anyway. They left the schools open and a lot of us got sick.

Then the vaccine came out. Those of us who went to public school weren't given a choice. The school system made it one of the mandatory vaccines to attend school like the MMR or the one for polio. Some parents took their kids out of school but most of us were stuck … yeah, I guess I just made a pun. That slowed the sickness down a little in the schools but the adults still got sick. A lot of them got sick. The economy got worse just because I guess, and things got scarce in the stores but the world didn't come to an end.

Everyone was jumping up and down when the "third wave" of the pandemic was over. The new people said the Spanish Flu way back in 1918 only had three waves so now that the third wave was over for this flu we were all safe. Then something happened. The flu hadn't gone away, it had mutated like scientists thought it would only not quite the way they thought it would. And people started getting sick again, bad sick.

The vaccine we had all gotten in the beginning no longer worked; like the regular seasonal vaccine, it was only good for that one go around. But no one had been paying attention and the flu virus did what flu viruses do and things got really bad, really quick.

The economy and junk was already bad off because the pandemic had been messing around with things for over a year. That wasn't the only reason but that was the big one people were blaming at the time. Uncle Charlie was so shocked that "his elected officials" weren't fixing things the way they had promised that he actually got depressed about it. All that hope and change was getting flushed down the toilet like Aunt Wilma's vomit and diarrhea. See Aunt Wilma got sick with the fourth wave when she hadn't during the first three. And then some of the other kids in the house got sick. Everything became too much for Uncle Charlie and he called social services to come take us, even me, but there wasn't any place else for us kids to go.

Finally when the cops caught a couple of the kids stealing from the grocery store so that we could eat they came to investigate. Before their investigation was through Aunt Wilma died. I never heard from Uncle Charlie again. They gave us kids that weren't sick fifteen minutes to pack one suitcase and one backpack and then they put us on a bus and took us to the school where we were going to stay.

They tried to keep the schools open for a while but there were so many sick kids and adults that it just wasn't worth it. Those of us who were being housed at the school were moved to a warehouse where they hung sheets up to make dormitories for the different age groups with the boys on one end of the warehouse and the girls on the other end. We were supposed to do school in the common area between but they never could seem to get around to it, especially when they started bringing in the Flu Orphans.

Well, that didn't go over well; too many kids and too few adults. Most of us older kids did try and help out but I'm not ashamed to admit we were in over our heads. It was the worst babysitting job I've ever had. And then the kids in the warehouse started getting sick too 'cause they hadn't been screening kids right or maybe it was one of the guards that brought it from home. That turned into a nightmare. There was puking and dirty sheets everywhere. The smell was awful. They would just put the kids that died outside in this van and when the van was full it would pull away and another one would take its place.

Then when the dying leveled off and had almost stopped other things started going wrong. The power didn't stay on very much after a while and some of the kids started going bonkers 'cause they didn't have anything to do. They vandalized all the common areas and even wrecked the plumbing. We had fewer and fewer adults showing up to help take care of us. Then some of the kids started creating gangs and it got really crazy. They moved out all of the really young kids and babies but I don't know where they took them. But then the worst of the worst happened; the food deliveries started slowing down.

It took months for all of this to happen. Sometimes I would lose track of time, especially when the power was off for more than a day or two at a time.

Well, my mouth got me in trouble one day. This guy who had been bothering me for a while came up to me while I was on kitchen duty and said he'd protect me from the other guys if I would … you know, kinda be in his harem. My answer wasn't polite. A skillet clunking you in the head isn't anywhere near polite. But the guy wouldn't take "no" when I tried to tell him politely when he started bothering me in the first place.

I got scared. I knew I was in trouble when even the adults started avoiding me. So, I made up my mind that it was safer for me to take off on my own than to wait around for the adults to figure out how to fix things. I don't really look at it as running away. I've got someplace to go and its mine. My parents left it to me. And I know things that about the house that Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie never figured out. My dad was really smart guy. I wish he was here so I could tell him that. And he would never let guys like that bother me.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Eventually I figured out either I was going to have to leave or I was going to have to be prepared to be like the other girls and find a guy that would "protect" me. I decided there was no way I was going to start sleeping around just to get something to eat and keep from getting beat up all the time or worse. My parents didn't raise me to be like that. Besides there is a reason why girls like that are the first ones to die in all those scary movies. They always seem to pick the guy willing to run away and leave them to be monster chow.

Daddy expected me to be a different kind of girl. He didn't stop me from being a tomboy but he was always on me about being careful about how I played with the neighborhood boys. I didn't know what he meant back then. I do now. Sometimes I wonder if Daddy hadn't died would things have stayed the same or would I have gotten into the same kind of trouble and been a disappointment to him. I always try to think about how Daddy and Momma would have expected me to act. I don't always act that way but I do try and think first.

Daddy used to tell me there wasn't anything in the world I couldn't do if I set my mind to it. I'm old enough now to know that isn't completely true. But I do know if there is something I want I'll never get it if all I do is sit around and wait for someone to hand it to me. And if I try my best and fail, that is still better than never trying at all. I sure as heck wasn't going to sit around and wait for some guy to rescue me, especially considering what he was asking for in return.

Part of me felt a little bad about leaving but me staying wasn't going to make it better for anyone and could get me dead or worse. Most of the friends that I had managed to make over the last several months, those that hadn't died when the flu swept through the warehouse, had picked sides in the gangs … and not all of them were on the same side. The drama was awful. I couldn't talk to her because she was having a fight with him over the fact that he used to belong to this gang but had switched allegiances because he was hot for a girl in the other gang. It got to be I wondered who my friends were. When Tony … the jerk that didn't understand the word "no" … started talking about what was going to happen to me I found it wasn't a matter of "who" my friends were but "if" I had any at all.

Once my decision was made I packed the few things I had left and kept them pretty close at hand. I didn't look any different than the other kids. Stealing was a big problem anyway so people had started to their keep stuff with them if they had anything they didn't want to "lose." I didn't have much of anything that was going to be useful and most of what I did have would have weighed me down if I had tried to take it. After dumping all my school books and the broken radio there really wasn't that much left.

I was down to only a couple of sets of underclothes so I had to take all of that. My shoes were shot and that was probably the only reason they hadn't been stolen, but they were all I had. At least I had two other pair of jeans plus the ones I wore and my two t-shirts only had a couple of holes and my other shirt still had all but the top and bottom buttons. No jacket but since it was April I wouldn't need one. No hat so that went on my List. The List is in one of those mini steno pads I used to keep my school assignments and due dates in. It helps me to remember what I need most when I have a chance to get it.

There wasn't any extra food so that was going to be a problem but I did have a water bottle. It didn't hold much but it was better than nothing and the lid didn't leak. I kept my CDs and DVDs the lawyer had had made of my family photos since the originals were all stored up at Sparkleberry Ranch. I had a toothbrush and hairbrush but no toothpaste or shampoo; that stuff had run out a long time ago. I swiped a bar of soap from the bathroom and wrapped it in some plastic wrap. That made me feel bad for a little bit but no one was using soap much these days. The warehouse smelled like a locker room after a football game when I left.

I had my plastic bowl and spork that we were issued when we were first brought to the warehouse and they were pretty sturdy and in good shape except the spork was missing one of its tines where I had tried to pry off a pull top a couple of weeks ago. And I had some rags that I kept washed out for my monthlies. All the girl stuff had run out a long time ago and we just had to do what we had to do. The monthlies were the worst but I guess because we weren't getting as much to eat a lot of the girls weren't having their monthlies any more. Kinda gross to think about it, but if a girl doesn't take care of herself that way no one else will. The boys were always teasing us and making us miserable. If I could have a couple of wishes one them would be for boys to have to go through what us girls go through for a whole year before they got to claim their so-called manhood. Bet there would be a lot fewer dirty jokes if they did.

One of the last things I packed was a knife out of the kitchen. Momma's butter knives were sharper than this thing is but they took all the sharp knives away when they took the little kids. That didn't mean that there weren't those kinds of weapons you find in prisons. We've got a couple of Juvie Hall guys in the group that showed everyone how to make stuff. They used to come through and confiscate anything that looked like a weapon or that could be used as a weapon but they gave up on that after a while when it didn't do any good.

I had planned on taking my sheets with me but someone stole them a couple of days before I took off. I know who but it doesn't matter anymore. It only hurts if I think about it. She used to be my friend.

That was it. All I had were some clothes, toiletries, and a few personal things. The day before I left I started a twig on fire on the kitchen burner and took it outside and burnt my old journal then buried it. We aren't allowed outside too much except in the courtyard and I turned around to find one of the guys that wore the urban camouflage uniforms watching me. The weird thing is that he didn't ask me what I was doing or tell me to go back inside he just stared.

I remember Daddy inviting guys like this to our house for one of Momma's home cooked meals. They would be older guys with gray in their short cut hair and no wedding band on their finger. They never quite seemed to know what to make of my brother and I and Momma always told us to be on our best behavior when Daddy had friends like that over for dinner and to stay out of the way afterwards.

I went back inside and started to wonder if I was going to be able to sneak out after all. I had to wait until way after the moon rose for everyone to go to sleep. The adults sleep in the common area if the weather is bad but it wasn't so they were all outside breathing fresh air which was partly why it took so long for things to settle down. The doors all got locked when the last adult left but I had made sure one of the bathroom windows was left where I could get out. I had to stand on the sink to crawl onto the ledge and nearly fell on my backside a couple of times but I got out and onto the dumpster that I had pushed against the wall a couple of days ago.

I had both feet on the ground and was just turning around when I nearly wet myself. It was that same guy and he was still just staring. When he didn't try to stop me I started walking across the courtyard so I could climb onto the other dumpster I had moved and get over the courtyard fence since I was too big to squeeze through the chained and padlocked gate. I fell getting off the fence on the other side but the only thing I hurt was my pride.

The guy still hadn't said anything and it was weirding me out but then as I stepped away this gravely voice whispered, "You'll either dish it out in here or dish it out out there girly. A pretty little thing like you won't last long."

Gross. I kept walking. If it hadn't been so dark I would have run. It wasn't for another hour that I realized I didn't really know where I was. Tampa is a big place and everything looks different when the electricity is out. I knew we were somewhere near the school but I didn't even know what direction I was going. As bad as it was back at the warehouse it was scarier being outside and alone. I realized I needed a lot more of a plan than what I had.

That was when I saw the street sign and finally recognized where I was. I was a mile down the road from the highschool. I headed that way trying to come up with a story to give to the adults I thought would be there. But when I got to the school there wasn't anyone and it looked like the place had been looted. Papers and books lay all over the ground and they'd been there long enough to get rained on at least once.

I didn't have to climb a fence this time because the gates were barely hanging on and I could just walk through. I knew the safest place for me to hideout was the old projection booth in the assembly room. My luck was out though because the door was locked. The next thing that went on the List was bolt cutters. I knew where a pair were but I wasn't going hunting for them in the dark. The School Resource Officer kept a big pair in his filing cabinet to take combination locks off of lockers for when people didn't use regulation locks issued by the school.

The next place I tried to hide worked out better but I banged my head on the trapped door when I was trying to close it. There is a crawl space under the stage where all the wiring is for the speakers and floor lights. The assembly room was so dark it took me forever to find the recessed release handle so I could move the panel. It's a good thing I'm not scared of much anymore because it was as dark as the inside of a black cat down there and it smelled funny too. But by that time I was too tired to care, not to mention that it was easier to go to sleep than worry about the fact that I was hungry and hadn't eaten since that morning. It had only been stale cereal with milk from powder to pour over it; better than nothing, but not by much.

I banged my head worse the next morning. I woke up to this munching sound in my ear and when I went to brush it away I touched something fuzzy. I didn't care, I wanted out of there fast only I couldn't find the door to get out. I got so turned around and scared that I kicked out the speaker covers and crawled out that way. The thing I had touched was a mouse and it had been chewing off the wispy curls that grow around my ears. There was a whole curl missing. Ick.

I could tell it was daylight because of the light coming around the doors. I had to go to the bathroom really bad so I listened at the door and when I didn't hear anything for a long time I slowly pushed it open and peeked out. There was no one around and hadn't been anyone around. I didn't notice last night but there was a dead furry something that had been drug up under the azalea bushes. I imagine it used to smell pretty bad so if grown ups had been around they would have gotten rid of it.

I ran to the closest girls' bathroom praying that they weren't locked. The girls bathroom was locked so I had to use the boys' bathroom. Talk about your weird experience. It was so gross in there, but most of the grossness was dry. I hit the first stall but it was too disgusting for words. I started at the other end and found one that didn't make me want to gag and just managed to take care of things without making a mess. Next that went on my list was toilet paper and wet naps if I could find them.

I'd never been in a boys bathroom before so I wasted a few minutes looking around. I almost laughed and I would have only I thought if I did I might start crying. If I started crying I wasn't sure I'd be able to stop.

After I snuck out of the bathroom I decided I had nothing to lose and headed to the cafeteria to see if there was anything to eat in there. I shouldn't have been disappointed but I was. There wasn't anything edible left. But I stopped right before leaving and made myself really look around and see if there wasn't something that I could use. By the time I had left I had an armful of stuff. There was salt and pepper and some ketchup and mustard packets. I found a bundle of napkins and a handful of those mini straws we used to stick in the orange juice boxes. I got a couple sets of silverware. I got a pizza cutter, a beat up aluminum pitcher, some coffee filters, and a big knife with a heavy handle. I wrapped everything up in this huge sweater jacket that was draped over the chair at the head cafeteria lady's desk. The sweater made a pillow on hot nights and a blanket on cooler nights. It smelled funny, like somebody had dumped a bottle of perfume on it so when I took everything back to my hidey hole I laid it over the bushes to try and get some of the stink out of it.

Next stop was the Resource Officer's office because I was not sleeping with the mice anymore. Next time it could be my ear they decided to munch instead of my hair. The administrative offices were a mess. All of the computers monitors looked like they had been kicked in, key boards had keys missing, there were holes in the walls, and filing cabinets were turned over. Betcha a disgruntled student did it; probably a couple of them. But whoever had tore things up was just doing mischief, they weren't really looking for anything.

One of the secretary's desks had a couple of boxes of those fancy herbal teas, some sugar packets (only the fake stuff but it was better than nothing), and a tin of shortbread cookies. I was so hungry I ate a couple right there even though they were so stale they barely had any taste to them. Another desk had a whole pile of those diet candy bars, guess even the mice didn't like them but I dumped them into a file box I was loading up. Beggars can't be choosers. The principal's office had a bunch of cool stuff in it … coffee, tea, real sugar packets, hot chocolate, and a really big stoneware mug that said "Every Day is Recess." The best though was the case of those little pint-sized water bottles in the bottom of one of the filing cabinets. I opened one and guzzled it down to chase the taste of stale cookies out of my mouth and get the fur off of my tongue.

The bolt cutters were buried under a tipped over filing cabinet but I finally managed to pull them out. I had half hoped there would be a gun on something in there but I guess that was pretty stupid. I did find the master keys to all the lockers on campus and I pocketed those real fast so I wouldn't forget them. Our highschool actually had a nurses station because of our PTA. It wasn't really useful but I grabbed the big first aid kit that had been ripped off the wall and after fooling with the master keys for a minute was able to get into the closet that held the stuff that was put aside for the migrant kids and their families. There wasn't much left, a lot of the illegal migrants went back where they came from when all the jobs dried up, but there was a box with some shampoo and deodorant and stuff in it and suddenly I felt all dirty and itchy. Wasn't a thing I could do about it though until I could find more water.

I took everything back to the Assembly Room and cut the chain off the projection booth door and took all my booty inside. What I hadn't counted on was how dark it was in there so I just left everything and went looking in all of the janitor's closets. Nada. Zilch. Nothing. Worse was how rotten all of the mildewed mop heads smelled. I finally found what I was looking for in Coach Adams' office in the boys' locker room. There were also big bags of powdered Gatorade that I guess they used to make up for the jocks and about a half a case of bigger water bottles. I hit the jackpot in the girls' locker room when I found a bunch of feminine hygiene stuff.

When I was coming out of the locker rooms I heard the first vehicles that I'd heard since leaving the warehouse. I ran and hid, nearly dropping the box that held everything I had found except the water. I went back for that after it sounded like the vehicles had kept going on down the highway. I had just gotten back to the Assembly Room when I heard the vehicles coming back. I ran to the projection booth and stayed there for the rest of the day and night only coming out to use the bathroom once after it had gotten good and dark.

The next day I made sure to be more careful. I know nobody saw me but it was too easy for someone to sneak up on me if I got too busy treasure hunting. That day I went through most of the lockers on campus. There wasn't much but I still managed to find a few things including a nearly new pair of tennis shoes that fit. I also found a couple of knives and even a gun which nearly freaked me out. Now I don't mind guns and I don't think they are bad or scary, Daddy had a bunch of them; he just never got around to teaching me how to use one. I mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know which end to point and what part to pull, but for all the rest of it I would need a book or something with instructions and I didn't figure I was going to find a book like that in the school library.

I put the gun back where I found it because not only did I not know how to use it, it was rusty and I couldn't even figure out how to tell if it was loaded or not. I figured until I had more idea what I was doing the gun wasn't worth the risk of what I could accidentally to do me with it. Since I don't know how to use a gun yet I'm concentrating on staying out of situations where I would need one.

I heard the vehicles again about the same time I had heard them the day before. I was on the second floor in Hall 3 and peeked out a classroom window that faced the road. The noise came from two military humvee looking things, only they were convertibles instead of hard tops. There were four guys in each one and the guys wore urban camou and had big guns. They had those military helmets on that strapped under their chins. They were just driving, not really looking around.

I hadn't seen a live TV show or a radio broadcast in a long time but if there was a lot of looting and riots I bet the people in charge had put curfews into effect. That would explain why there weren't any cars on the road or people going around. It didn't explain all of the Twilight Zone stuff but that would explain some of it. It also meant that if I got caught I would be in really big trouble.

I knew I couldn't live in the school much longer so when I found the maps in the Driver's Ed classroom I started making plans for getting further out of town. Until I figured out what I could get away with I would have to travel at night which means that I would need to stay close to a road or I'd probably wind up going in circles or tripping over stuff or having to travel through people's yards which might be even more dangerous.

Then I needed to pick the road I was going to travel on. The Interstate would have been the quickest but I had a feeling that was going to be a bad choice if I wanted to stay away from adults that would try and tell me what I could and couldn't do. I was already on the north end of Dale Mabry Hwy and that dead ends into US41. I looked at the maps and I could follow US41 all the way up to US441 in High Springs. Then I could take US27 to SR49 and SR49 would run right by Sparkleberry Ranch. I was set, at least until I started adding up all of the miles.

Two hundred miles. I couldn't believe it. I mean I knew that traveling by car on the interstate it took three hours to get to the property from Tampa but … gee whiz, two hundred miles. I figured that I could hike for eight hours each night if I was careful and didn't try going too fast. I didn't have any idea how fast I could walk though so I guessed around two or three miles per hour. That meant if I walked the whole way it was going to take me about two weeks to get there. There was no way I had food and water for two weeks. Those diet bars didn't go very far and they had a lot of fiber in them so I had to go to the bathroom a lot too. They also made me thirsty which means I was drinking a lot of water and my water was already half gone even though I was trying to be careful.

I supposed I could have stayed in Tampa and tried to make a go of it but there really wasn't anything left for me there. It took me two days to try and pack everything. I kept having to change backpacks. I finally found the biggest one I could find in the AV room. I think it belonged to one of the chess club members because it had a box of chess pieces in it. I nearly brought the game but in the end I had to leave it because the back pack was a lot heavier than I expected after it was all loaded. The scale in the nurse's office said it weighed fifty pounds. I knew right then I was in trouble but I didn't know what I could leave behind.

I did get rid of a little bit of the weight when I took all the first aid stuff out of metal first aid kid and repacked the stuff in a couple of make-up kit bags. I also left the folding chair and just cut me another piece of plastic like I used to make me a tent and ground cloth with. I got rope and stakes for my tent by going through all the sports equipment in Coach Adams' office.

Finally I was as ready as I was going to be and I Ieft as soon as the sun was all the way down, heading north on US41. I was scared but kind of excited too. Boy was I in for a rude awakening.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I had been walking for two hours when I really needed to go to the bathroom badly. Right there and then I started a new page in my steno pad called "Kiri's Rules for Traveling." Rule number one: always go to the bathroom BEFORE you start a long hike.

I hadn't even made it to US41 yet. At the rate I was walking I was going to be lucky to get that far. But I was getting desperate. There was a mini-mart on the left side of the highway, it had been trashed too and had all the windows broken out. I was careful of all the glass, not because I was afraid of getting cut but because when I stepped on it the sound of the glass crunching was so loud I thought someone would hear me.

There was nothing left on the inside of the store. I guess when the place got busted up the owners sent someone to clean the place out of anything else that was left; not even a Slurpy machine was left behind. If the Seven Eleven sign hadn't been on the outside of the building you couldn't have told what it used to be. The gas pumps were even gone from outside.

Because there wasn't anything to block the moonlight I was able to get to the door for the bathroom easy enough. There was no door knob on the door but the bathroom wasn't too gross. No toilet paper but I was prepared for that with a couple of napkins.

Since I figured water was going to be scarce on my hike one of the things I did before I left the school was to go around to all the sanitizer stations and pumped out what was left and put it into a lotion bottle that I found in a teacher's desk. The sanitizer had a little bit of lotion in it where I couldn't wash it out but I didn't figure that would hurt anything.

I sure didn't want to put the backpack back on but I was already behind schedule. I got squared away and ate a diet bar while I walked a little faster trying to make up for lost time.

Two hours later, US41 in sight, and I had to go to the bathroom again so bad I thought I was gonna die. Rules for Traveling Number Two: Fiber bars suck for trail food, save them until the end of the hike. There wasn't any handy dandy minute market around and all the businesses I tried were locked up tight. I didn't want to rattle around too much and I was getting kind of desperate. There was no way I was going to go to the bathroom right beside the highway where anyone could see me so I went behind this block of businesses and finally found a private spot that I didn't feel too exposed at between this big stack of tires and some kind of car fixing place. My stomach hurt so bad and I was so scared that it took forever. I just knew someone was going to jump out and go "Boo!" before I could get my pants up.

Rules of the Road Number Three: Since nothing looks like it is supposed to look in the middle of the night, when stepping off the road always make sure and leave some kind of marker to remind yourself how to get back.

I don't know how I managed to do something so ignorant but I did. I must have made a wrong turn because I got so confused that instead of getting back out to the highway I somehow wound up in the backside of a subdivision. I still don't know how I went wrong but boy was I turned around. I only made it worse when I tried to turn around and go back the way I had come and couldn't even find the big pile of tires.

So I wasted at least an hour probably wandering around in circles inside this business park and when I finally see the highway I start running to get to it. Baaad decision. It was so dark that I didn't see where the drainage ditch started and I fell in. Lucky for me it wasn't a bad fall but the bottom of the ditch was full of dirty water.

Rule Number Four: Never run at night unless there is a monster chasing you. Rule Number Five: Never put your spare set of clothes at the bottom of the backpack.

I wasted another hour unpacking and repacking the backpack to get to my dry clothes. Only the bottom part of me was wet but I wasn't going to walk around in wet and muddy undies and wet shoes and socks. By the time I had changed and figured out how to tie all the wet stuff to the back pack so that it would have a chance to dry while I walked I was so mad I could have screamed a cuss word if I wasn't afraid of someone hearing me.

I eventually made it up to the US41/SR54 intersection but the sky was already getting that color that it gets right before the sun starts coming up. I didn't want to risk anyone seeing me so I needed to find a place to sleep. I almost picked Big Lots but there were a bunch of cars parked in front of it though I couldn't see people to go with the cars. The McDonald's was burnt to pieces. So I picked the 84 Lumber place. It looked like it had gone out of business a few months ago and it was easy to crawl through the gaps the back fence. My bolt cutters let me into the store and then I found a closet in the back offices that was big enough that I could lay down in and go to sleep.

I was really disappointed that I hadn't gotten further and had made such bad mistakes. I promised myself right then and there to try really hard to never make the same mistake twice. Before I went to sleep I ate another one of the diet candy bars. The only good thing about those bars is they have something in them that kill your appetite … besides the taste I mean.

When I woke up it was still daylight so I decided to scrounge around in the office to see if I could find anything of value. There wasn't much. Most people must have cleared their desks out before everything was locked down. The manager's office though hadn't been touched. Roaches had gotten into most of the snacks the guy had in his desk but there was a small jar of peanut butter than looked OK. There were also a couple of gallon jugs of water in the supply cabinet; he must have used them for the coffee machine. I used those two gallons to fill back up the water bottles I had emptied last night and to try and make myself something to eat besides diet candy bars.

It was really pathetic but I didn't have much choice. I found this piece of sheet metal and I made a very small fire using scraps of wood that were laying all over the place and one of those Bic disposable lighters that I found in a coat pocket with some cigarettes in the manager's office. I put some water in the aluminum pitcher I brought from school and got it as hot as I could make it. Then I dumped the water into the stoneware mug and added a few packets of ketchup. Instant tomato soup! There are not words to describe how yuck that tasted, but it was still better than having to choke down another one of those fake candy bars.

I knew I was going to have to do something about food and soon. The idea of breaking into houses or stores scared me to death. What if there was someone in there with a gun? What if I was taking the last bit of food they had and it was my fault they starved to death? What if, what if, what if; none of that made a difference - if I didn't find some real food soon I was going to be the one starving to death.

I ate a spoonful of peanut butter after my "tomato soup" and that helped some but not much. I thought I had found some chewing gum in the manager's desk but it wound up being that nicotine gum that you chew when you are trying to quit smoking. That kind of habit I didn't need though I really did think about it. Some of the girls said that the nicotine helped when they were trying to lose weight. I put the gum in with my food supplies though I sure hope I never get so desperate I have to use it.

I got antsy so I went scrounging around in all the desks and cubbyholes in the warehouse and office again and was rewarded with a few more things. The best treasure was a watch. I don't think it has the right time but at least now I can measure the hours as they go by. The watch is too big so I ran the wrist band through my belt loop. It lights up so I can see the watch face at night if I need to. The other thing I found was a package of batteries that would work in the mag flashlight I found in Coach Adams' office. I've learned to get by with moonlight for hiking on the road but the few times I've needed the flashlight it was nice to have.

I kept expecting to see some movement over by Big Lots and all of those cars but I never did. The humvees drove by and used the parking lot next to the McDonald's to turn around in so at least I knew I'd be leaving those guys behind. I guess SR54 was as far as they patrolled. My curiosity was getting to me and as soon as the sun went down I was ready to go and ran across US 41 and checked out the Big Lots.

They should have called Big Lots "Big Cots" instead. The store had been gutted and was full of cots. All unoccupied thank goodness. They must have used the place as a barracks or maybe to warehouse kids like they did us but there was no one there now. I doubt it was kids though because everything was too neat and clean. I'm getting to be a bathroom aficionado now that I have to find or make them for myself and looking back that was one of the cleanest ones I've run into for a long time. There was even toilet paper. I admit I swiped some and took some of the brown paper towels too. I would have taken some of the liquid soap but I had plenty of that at the time.

It was just as easy to sneak out as it was to sneak in. Somebody forgot to lock the loading bay in the back. Things must be really bad if people can be so careless as to let something like that happen and there isn't anyone but me left to take advantage of it.

That night and the next I did a lot better than I did the first night. I guess altogether I had hiked about thirty to thirty- five miles because I made it to Brooksville. And that is where I got cocky or desperate depending on how you looked at it.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I decided to hide for the day in this place my parents would take us every year for Christmas; it's called Roger's Christmas House. I was happy to see it was still there. Even all the goofy Christmas characters were still in the gardens between the different themed houses. I was trying to decide whether I wanted to stay in Storybook House or the Magnolia House when I ran straight into two people.

When I say I ran into them I mean I literally ran into them. They were both older than me but not really by all that much though they acted like they were. The guy had a rifle but I never figured out if he really knew how to use it or if it was more for show. The girl looked like a cheerleader trying to look like she came from the 'hood. The guy kinda looked like that actor off of the Verizon commercials that said, "Can you hear me now?"

It took a minute or two to get over scaring the mess out of each other. When we did we kind of circled each other like dogs do when they are forced to get to know one another. Eventually we decided to throw in together for the day since they warned me there had been some men roaming around the area high or drunk or both. They said the men shot off some guns the day before but weren't shooting at anything in particular.

The guy's name was Jeff and the girl … his fiance' … was named Janie. And they were so in love, just absolutely destined to be together. How do I know that? Because they told me over and over and over again. I've met "couples" like them before. They tell people just how much they are "in love" to try and convince themselves as much as anyone else that will listen. I never understood that. My mom and dad could get goofy and chase each other around the house and stuff sometimes – which was really, really weird to watch – but the mushy stuff always happened in private and they sure didn't go around telling strangers they just met about how in lllluuuuuvvvvv they were. But each to his own I guess.

Jeff and Janie; how cute. Jeff was twenty years old and Janie was nineteen and they were students at USF where they served on some kind of pep squad kind of thing to build up school spirit. That's how they knew they were "fated to be together."

I was starting to get really hungry and they looked really hungry too. Then Jeff's stomach growled and it was so loud we all jumped. I don't know what was funny about that but we all three laughed so hard I got scared someone was going to hear us.

I hate it when people call me "kid" but Jeff was going through an old-man phase and asked, "Kid, you had anything to eat recently?" I told him not much. Then he asked me if the water in my water bottle was any good. I told him it was wet and left it at that. Janie turned into "the mom" and said, "look, we've got some powdered soup but not any clean water. You share your water, we'll share our soup."

Turns out not only did they not have any water for their soup they didn't have anything to fix the soup in either. And they were calling me kid?!

Jeff did have a lighter which meant I didn't have to use mine but he couldn't build a cooking fire for nothing. I asked him if he'd ever been in scouts and he said no. I looked at Janie and she just shrugged. I was so hungry I didn't care at that point so I built the fire, heated the water, and cooked. It was just chicken noodle soup but man oh man was it good.

The sun was climbing and I knew I needed to get some sleep if I was going to be worth anything I started looking around for a place to hide. Jeff and Janie got the picture and we all turned in for the day. I was up and packing for the road when I started getting hassled. I thought it wasn't until you turned twenty-one that your adult gene activated.

Right off they said I should go with them because I was young and needed someone to look out for me. Yeah right. I had a feeling if I hung with them I'd wind up being servant girl to the lovebirds. Besides they were going to the coast where Janie's parents had a condo. I was kept saying "no thanks" while I wrapped a couple of Christmas ornaments my mom would have loved and tucked them into my backpack where they wouldn't get broken when Jeff told me something that almost convinced me to go with them after all.

Apparently there had been some type of nuclear threat against the US. They weren't for sure, it was only rumors that had come over the radio, that someone had bombed a couple of the big cities. Then a panic started that MacDill was one other bigger targets and Tampa and the surrounding cities emptied out as fast as people could get out.

I thought about that for a second and then asked them if that was true where were all the cars? Apparently this had happened a couple of months ago and when all the people got on the road flu and dysentery and all sorts of gross stuff started happening to the refugees. The military and national guard were called in by the governor and the cars were hauled off if they weren't willingly moved. There wasn't a lot of fuel by then so people were stuck where their car gave out. The rural communities couldn't absorb them all and people starting shooting each other for food, fuel, and medical care. And there we had been complaining that the Xbox wouldn't work in the warehouse. Guess that was the real reason why they took away the TVs and claimed the radios didn't work anymore. I wouldn't have wanted to deal with a bunch of panicking kids either. It also explained why we had guys in uniform watching us instead of social workers.

Even though what they told me had been happening worried me I decided to stick with my plan. They weren't too happy when I told them. They acted like I was being ungrateful that they were willing to take me on. I nearly rolled my eyes but told them how nice it was of them to offer, especially since they didn't know me, but that I was set on my course. For just a second Janie looked like she wanted to make me do what they said but there wasn't really anything they could do. We parted ways and I got out of there just as fast as I could. I even cut through some backyards and trees to throw them off just in case they were following me.

I really hoofed it that night and made it all the way to Floral City and by the time I got there I was so tired I could barely see straight. Floral City used to be an important place but that stopped way back around World War One if you can believe the historical markers in the historic district. Maybe it was getting important again because I could tell there were people in this town. Even though it wasn't daybreak yet I could hear people moving around in a couple of the buildings, especially one called the Heritage House Bed and Breakfast.

I got out of there as fast as I could but the only place I could find to hole up was a shed out in this old orange field. There were still a few oranges on the trees that sat back a ways from the road, but only a few. I grabbed a handful and ducked into the shed via a piece of loose plywood that covered a hole in the building's siding. The shed didn't have any windows and wasn't really a shed but an old well house.

I ate the oranges even though parts of them were drying out. I didn't have any choice after I ate but to use the corner furthest from me as a bathroom so I dug the best hole I could and then covered it up so the smell couldn't get out. I curled up behind the big water bladder and tried to get some sleep.

I had a hard time waking up and really didn't until after the sun had started sinking for the day. I was hot and thirsty and knew I was getting bad off because I had already had to put a new notch in my belt to keep my jeans from drooping. I also knew I only had two days water left at the most. But I wasn't going to be able to do anything about it in Floral City, too many people around.

I had to wait until way after dark to make my escape and nearly got caught by a dog. Luckily it was still used to people and more curious than territorial. It was the first dog I had seen in a while and I wanted to stop and love on it so bad but knew I couldn't take the chance. Not quite two hours later I passed a brown sign for the turn off to Ft. Cooper State Park and just beyond that was an airport used by those airplanes that still used props on the nose. I started noticing that I was getting out of "farm country" and back into a place where houses crowded the road; lots and lots of houses. That's when I saw the sign "Welcome to Inverness."

I hadn't gotten very far but I knew that I had to find some real food or I was going to get sick. My stomach burned like crazy when I tried to eat another orange before I started walking and the idea of eating one of the two last fiber bars made me want to puke. And I was already tired enough to go back to sleep. I had to find some food and that meant breaking and entering.

I didn't like it and I got the shivers thinking about what my Dad would have said if he knew but I didn't feel like I had any choice. I got off of the highway and started working my way through the subdivision on the west side of the road. All of the houses near the road were trashed and picked over. A couple of them looked like they were still lived in even though they were in pretty sad shape. I nearly turned around until I noticed someone chalked an "X" on the door at all the houses that were trashed and empty. The further into the subdivision I went the fewer X's there were. Finally by the time I got to the way far back area there were hardly any X's at all.

I decided to carefully check one of the houses in a cul-de-sac that was kind of set back off of a street that itself was set back. I heard a dog barking but it was way far off. How far off I didn't know because sounds carried funny when there weren't any other sounds to compete with it. The mosquitoes nearly drove me nuts as I crawled through the tall grass to get to the back of the house. No broken windows and doors but no signs of life either.

I couldn't risk making a bunch of noise so I pulled out the bolt cutters and chopped off the doorknob. I was lucky there was no keyed top bolt on the backdoor. And lucky for me too was that when I finally managed to get the doorknob off it fell on my foot and not the concrete. I hopped around for a second waiting for my foot to stop hurting then I stuck my big honking Craftsman screwdriver in the neck of what was left of the doorknob and finally got the bolt to pull back out of the door frame. I was beginning to realize that God must have had a purpose for sticking me with Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie after all. I'd sure watched him pull this same stunt with the bedroom doors often enough.

The backdoor opened onto the garage and I was surprised as heck to find a car in there. Everything was covered with sandy dust. The only tracks I saw looked like they had been made by lizards or palmetto bugs. It smelled really funny in the garage, kind of like spoiled food. There wasn't enough light for me to see so I decided to risk a quick look around with the flashlight. I cupped my hand over the end of the light and only let out enough so that I would kill myself tripping over stuff; good thing too because there were boxes stacked all over on the side of the garage that was supposed to have been where a second car could fit.

And there, hanging upside down from the ceiling, was something that made me feel really, really, really dumb. It was a bike. I could have been riding a bike this whole time. I wanted to beat my head against the wall. I was so mad at myself for not thinking of it sooner. I hadn't seen any bikes before now, not even at the school, but I hadn't exactly been looking for any either. And this bike had those wheels that would hold up on either concrete or on dirt. The blasted thing even had those saddle bags that college kids use to carry stuff on campus.

I didn't have a chance to be mad long though because I was getting dizzy from all the blood rushing to my head. I looked a half a minute more and noticed a stain on the ceiling so had to tell myself to be careful in case there was a plumbing mess upstairs.

The door from the garage into the house was flimsy and all I had to do was stick my screwdriver between the doorframe and the door and lean on it a couple of times and the door pried right open. When I walked through the door I found myself in a neat little utility room. On the other side of the utility room was a clean but dusty kitchen that opened up to a family room on one end and a formal dining room on the other. The first couple of cabinets I opened had pots and pans and dishes in them. Then I got to a cabinet, opened it, and just had to stop and stare.

It was like looking at a grocery store shelf. Everything in there was all nice and neat with cans and boxes all matched up for size and kind. If the house hadn't been so dusty and smelling funny I would have sworn up, down, and sideways that someone still lived there. There was a box of trail mix granola bars in one of the cabinets and I tore into one real quick. I almost threw it back up too but was able to stop by taking deep breaths through my nose.

I grabbed another bar but decided to wait for the first one to settle before I opened it. I looked through the rest of the cabinets and it was like Ali Baba's cave. Whoever had lived there even had the good mac-n-cheese; the kind with the squeezy cheese instead of the powdered cheese. They went cheap on the beanie weenies though and had gotten the store brand.

Instead of the granola bar I decided on a can of beanie weenies but first I needed to find a bathroom. There was a half bathroom downstairs but it looked like it was in the middle of a renovation because the toilet was against the wall and the bathroom fixtures were all sitting in a box on the floor.

That left upstairs. I was hoping there was a bathroom or I would have to go out into the tall grass and I did not want to get mosquito bit in an uncomfortable spot. I went up the stairs and the bathroom was in working order if you didn't count that there was no water in the bowl or toilet tank. I sprayed the handy can of air freshener around to hide I had been there. Since I was upstairs I figured I take a look around.

The first room I hit was a little kid's room but there were boxes all over the place like it was being packed up. The next room was an older kid's room and it was nearly all packed up except for the Jonas Brother and Taylor Swift posters on the walls. I opened another door and found a linen closet. When I opened the last door I knew I wouldn't be eating the beanie weenies. I was heaving and heaving and barely got to the bathroom to throw up the granola bar.

I'm no wuss. I saw a lot of kids die in the warehouse and had to help put them in body bags so they could be taken away but I'd never seen anyone with their head half blown off before. There was a woman .. what was left of a woman … on one side of the bed. He must have caught her when she was sleeping. There was a guy in pajama bottoms leaning up against the wall with a shotgun propped up around where the bottom of his face should have been. They'd been dead a long time, long enough for most of the smell to be gone but not long enough to be mummies. The worst was all of the roaches crawling all over everything in that room.

I dared myself to go back and close the bedroom door and then I stuffed a towel to keep the bugs from crawling out. I ran back downstairs, forgetting rule number four, and nearly broke my neck on the stairs. When I picked myself up at the bottom I had to stop and tell myself that there was nothing to be scared of. There were no such things as ghosts or monsters. Those people up there were either in Heaven or Hell and either way it wasn't my business. I still tied a bandana around my nose and mouth because one way or the other I didn't want to join them any time soon.

I went to the garage and got the bike off of the rack and set it by the outside door. I went back inside to the kitchen and started pulling all the food out of the cabinets and taking it outside. I loaded the saddle bags with everything I could use and what didn't fit in the saddle bags I put in a wheelbarrow. I was going to take straight off but decided to take one last look around the garage before I did.

Looking was easy. All of the storage tubs were stacked really neat and had labels on them. There were two tubs that I had to stop and examine. One was labeled "hurricane supplies" and the other was labeled "camping gear." The stuff in the hurricane tub was useless. None of the flashlights worked and there were no batteries. There was probably some inside but I didn't want to spend a lot of time looking for them. The plastic lantern was cracked and was too big for me to big and heavy. The collapsible water jug had a split in it.. The only things I took out of that tub was a small wind up flashlight/radio combination thing and the two boxes of waterproof matches.. The camping gear box was a lot better.

There was a tent in there but it was too big and heavy so I skipped it.. There were a couple of those expensive sleeping bags that are really warm but can still smoosh down into a small bag amount the quarter size of a bed pillow and I took the one that wasn't dayglow orange.. There was a zipper bag that had one of those fancy backpacking stoves in it and a couple of little thermos looking bottles that were labeled stove fuel and lucky for me the directions were still in there. And the best thing next to the stove were two Katadyn water filters, one for hiking and one called a gravity filter. I knew what those were because that's what we used when we were building Sparkleberry Ranch and didn't have electricity to the well yet. The only other thing I took was a flashlight that you stuck to your forehead with a big elastic hair band and one of the mess kits. Anything else would have been overkill and I was majorly pushed for space as it was.

When I had everything packed the best I could and had changed my mind a bunch of times about what food to take I went inside and got a couple of kitchen rags to take and a hot pad – cause bandanas don't really work no matter what they show in the cowboy movies – and as I was walking out I spied a few more water bottles. I had to stick them in a plastic grocery bag and hang them on the handle bars but I wasn't leaving them behind. They'd get used up soon enough I figured and better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

There was still a bunch of food left in the wheelbarrow even though I'd taken all the store packaging off the food I took and put it in Ziploc bags. I knew the people that had lived in that house wouldn't need it anymore but it still felt a little bit like stealing. To try and make things a little better I pushed the wheelbarrow around the corner and into the middle of the road so that somebody would see it sooner or later and then went back and put on the backpack and climbed on the bike.

I'm so glad no one was around to watch me figure out how I was going to get on the bike and get going. I hadn't been on a bike in a long time and this was one with one of those skinny seats on it and the handle bars down low. I finally got going but I was wobbly for nearly an hour until I could find a rhythm that didn't make the back pack shift from side to side and didn't make the water bottles knock me in the knees.

But the one thing the bike did was give me a sense of freedom I hadn't had in a long, long time. I had to stay on the road but that was OK; it got me out of Inverness quicker and once I was passed Inverness Regional Shopping Center I was back into a long rural stretch. I only got as far as Arlington, FL but I didn't mind, that's probably as far as I could have hiked on foot even if I had gone at it all night.

I pulled over at the Lakeside Golf Course and hunkered down for the day in a shed behind the club house. I didn't bother unpacking anything because I was so tired. I made myself eat some cold ravioli and drink a bottle of water and then I covered my new bike up with a golf cart cover and then climbed under the tent it made and went to sleep.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

I slept nearly all day but did wake up when I rolled over and brought the bike down on top of me. Talk about heart attack city! I got up and took care of my personal needs, noticing that there were tender spots from the skinny bike seat, and then checked to see if there were any people around.

I didn't see any but I decided not to risk starting up the camping stove, especially since I hadn't had the time to learn to use it yet. Besides Beanie Weenies aren't bad cold. I decided to take a couple of the water bottles and turn them into Gatorade for the road ahead. I cleaned my spork, put it away, and then stepped on the can to make it as small as possible. We weren't exactly in the pristine wilderness but I hated to leave any bigger of a mess than I needed to. Mom always made a big deal of that when she was my Girl Scout leader. Besides, what if someone was following me?

There was some WD40 and graphite in the shed that I used to take care of the bike. Before the sun went down I sat and looked at the map again to make sure I was still headed in the right direction. I was pretty sure I could go twice as fast with the bike as I could on foot. No more than that though or I could run into problems. Even being careful it's been a near miss a couple of times, especially if I went around a corner too fast.

Best walking distance I made was fifteen miles in one night. I was pretty sure I could do roughly five miles an hour on the bike, depending on how long I could ride. That meant I could probably get between 30 and 40 miles per night. I thought at the time that could cut a lot of days off my travel time. It did up until I ran into trouble but I'm not to that part of the story yet.

I followed US41 from Arlington, through Hernando, and then to Holder and that was eight miles. From Holder to Dunnellon was another seven miles for a total of fifteen. That is how far I would have hoped to have gotten if I was walking. Getting to Williston would have been too much to hope for so I settled on trying to get to this place called Romeo which was twelve miles past Dunnellon. If it was too early to stop when I got to Romeo then I could decide to keep going or not.

I put a couple of those trail mix granola bars in the bag with the water bottles so I could have a snack if I wanted one and set off as soon as it was full dark. That was easier said than done because my fanny was some kind of sore. It was an hour before it got so numb I didn't notice it anymore.

I made it to Romeo with no problems, stopped for the night, and followed my routine of finding a convenient hiding place to wait out the day by sleeping. I should have known things were starting to go too good. I set out again at sundown and was just outside of Williston when I saw some fires in metal barrels that lit up a road block. I pulled off quick into the bushes to try and figure out what to do next.

It wasn't long before I was glad that I had pulled over and hidden. A car came out of nowhere and stopped not too far from where I was hiding. The car was a Mustang. I knew that because of the chrome horse on the back end where the trunk was. There were two guys in the car and with their windows rolled down I didn't have any trouble hearing what they were saying.

Boy, were they foul mouthed! They were complaining that the local cops had the road blocked off again and then spent fifteen minutes trying to decide what was the best way to get around so they could go pick up some person with "the stuff." I may be a kid in some people's eyes but come on, it was so easy to see these guys were drug mules and probably users too. If these were the kind of people that the cops in Williston were trying to keep out I certainly couldn't blame them.

The Mustang turned around and left back the way it had come but I still had to figure out what I was going to do. I pulled out the map and the head lamp and stepped further into the bushes and tall grass that was growing all up and down the highway now that the DOT had stopped mowing things. I squatted down and looked at my map.

Big problem, my maps showed the main roads but not the secondary roads. There was no way I was going to give adult authorities a chance to lock me up in a warehouse again so I backtracked a little bit and then turn north on the first secondary street I could which happened to be 7th Street. I figured seven was a lucky number and kept going.

Now the story gets scary for real. I was pedaling as fast as I could but not fast enough. The Mustang guys must have been pulled over and I didn't see them. But they sure saw me and I must have been like those fake rabbits they used to make Greyhounds run, irresistible.

There was no way I was going to beat them on the straight streets so I started riding through yards and cutting through hedges. This must have gone on for almost as hour. Every time I thought I'd lost them they'd pick up my scent again. And I was bad lost by this point that didn't help my frame of mind any. I still get the shakes pretty bad thinking about it as you can see from my handwriting.

I finally got lucky, or an angel gave me a hand, when I biked into this place where a bunch of semis were parked. There was enough room between the trucks for me and my bike but not enough room for the Mustang. I zigzagged through the area and the jigged when they should have jogged and ran their car up in under one of the tractor trailers.

It took me another hour to get to a road that showed up on my map. The problem was it was Alt US27 and not US27/US41 like I needed. I was so far turned around there wasn't any fixing it that night. There was no place to stay off of Alt US27 so I tried cutting north and didn't find too much there either, at least not building wise. There was a couple of houses but I wasn't thinking good and didn't want to risk getting caught.

I finally found a barn on CR241 that looked like a place nobody bothered with too much, got inside and did my best to hide in one of the old stalls that was furthest from the road. My legs and backside hurt so bad by that point that all I wanted to do was crawl into a ball and pretend the night hadn't even happened.

I woke up to the sound of a tractor and that's when I realized I was a lot closer to a house than I thought I had been. There were chickens and kids in the yard and I could hear two women talking while they hung up clothes. I have to admit that it's true what they say about praying harder when you know you aren't the one in control. I prayed all day that no one would come in the barn to find out why the dog kept wandering in and out. It finally lost its curiosity about dinner time when everyone went back in the house.

The smells that came out of the house were so good they made my stomach hurt. I could smell fried chicken and fresh bread for sure but there were other smells that were just as good. And there I was stuck eating cold ravioli again. I guess the family in the house lived by "early to bed and early to rise" because things got quiet faster than I expected.

I slowly got out of the barn after I made sure to put everything back the way I found it and had just put my leg over the bike to take off when this voice said, "Was wondering if you were gonna come out of there or not."

I must have looked scared cause the old man said, "Don't worry girl, I ain't gonna hurt you. But since you been staying in my barn I reckon you owe me some answers."

My mouth was really dry. I took my leg off the bike and turned around so I could look him in the eye. He still had a head of hair but it was pure white. He was wearing a pair of rough Dickie work pants and a short sleeved shirt that flapped over a white tank-type undershirt. I immediately thought of my Granddaddy only this man had lots more hair.

"Where you from girl?"

When I didn't answer him right away he asked, "Cat got your tongue?"

"No sir. You remind me of somebody and I don't want to lie to you."

"Well good cause I'm not partial to liars if you want to know the truth. You come on over here where we can talk better and I'll give you something the missus set aside for you."

I don't know what kept me from running away 'cause I could have but instead I did what he told me to do and rolled my bike over to some old metal yard chairs that were needing a new coat of paint. He pointed at me to sit down and when I did, he did.

"Now, you eat this and as soon as you're through I want my question answered."

I gnawed that chicken leg down and even ate the gristle. And I hadn't had a biscuit like that since my Momma was alive. It was a real biscuit, not one that came out of a can.

I wiped my mouth and hands and folded the bone up in the napkin. He took it and put it in his pocket "for soup" tomorrow. Then he just crossed his arms and looked at me and I knew it was time. So I told him my story and he didn't interrupt, not once.

"Well, the easiest way to get back to 27 from here is to keep going north on 241 until you get to 335. Take a right on 335 and you ain't got but a couple miles 'til 335 intersects with 27 then you take a left and you just keep going until you get where you mean to get."

My mouth fell open and the old man laughed. "Girl, I'm too old to try and stop somebody that is as set to do something as you seem to be. I know what it feels like when you got some place to be but you just remember this, you cain't get through this life alone. One o' these days you are going to need to stop and find you some friends again. You just make sure they're the right kind o' friends, you hear?"

He walked me to the gate and pointed me in the right direction and then I did something I hadn't done in a long, long time. I gave the old man a hug. He patted my back and then I was off feeling like that angel had been at work again.

The directions were so easy I didn't have to write them down and just like he told me it didn't take me long to get back to US41/US27 and I headed north again at this little town called Raleigh. Seven miles down the road was the town of Archer where I got chased by some big ol' dogs but no one came out to see what they were barking about. Ten miles after that came Newberry and that's where I've been stuck for the past two days.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It started the night I left out from the old man's farm. About 30 minutes before I saw the Newberry city limits sign it started to sprinkle. It didn't sprinkle for long before it started to rain. I pulled over under an overhang of a vacant Laundromat and pulled out my rain gear hoping that the rain wouldn't last long. Boy, was I wrong!

By the time I crossed into Newberry proper it was raining full on and by the time I reach SR26 I couldn't see to go any further it was coming down so hard. The worst though was the lightning. Twice I'd seen it hit trees only a couple of dozen feet away from me.

I couldn't pretend anymore that it was going to get better. I was very disappointed. I had to get off and walk the bike because by that point the water was too deep for me to peddle through. When I got off I found out what it was like to walk in water that goes half way up the back of your legs. The water was rushing towards the drainage things on the side of the roads but there was so much water even those things couldn't swallow it up fast enough; the roads were flooding. And the rain was cold too.

As careful as I was I stepped off the side of the road twice and dumped the bike, me, and everything else into deep puddles of water. The second time scared me to pieces because I felt myself being pushed by the water towards the really deep stuff piling up in the ditches. I finally got up and out of the water but not before I was soaked through.

It wasn't until I passed 4th Avenue that I could see enough through the rain to spot a house but when I got to it, thinking I could at least get out of the rain on the porch, I realized that though it used to be one of those big, old Victorian houses Momma used to like to read about there was nothing left of it but a burned out shell with no roof. There was a storage building behind it and by that point I just wanted out of the rain and lightning.

The storage building is a like an old carriage house. The doors on the bottom look like barn doors and there is a small room upstairs but it has been a long, long time since anyone lived in this place. There are no windows downstairs and the one small window upstairs is boarded over with old planks. I would have preferred to stay downstairs with my bike but the floor is nothing but dirt with a little gravel and oil mixed in and water rushes in from under the doors when it rains. And it's been raining off and on since I've been here, mostly on. So my bike is downstairs hidden under a bunch of old canvas paint tarps and I'm upstairs with everything else trying to avoid the leaks in the roof up here.

It took me twenty minutes after I got inside to decide what I was going to do and another twenty to hide my bike and then figure out how to get up the stairs without killing myself. There are steps missing, broken steps, and creaky steps that sound like they are about to break; and I had to carry all of my gear up them which took three trips. First trip was to make sure I could do it without getting hurt; the second trip was with the backpack and the last trip I took up the saddle bags. The sound of the rain hitting the roof was so loud I could barely hear myself think.

I wanted dry clothes but that wasn't going to happen; when I fell down into the water everything got soaked including my mag flashlight; the headlamp was OK. I put it on and turned it on and that is when I noticed that the roof leaked. First order of business was to stack some stuff in front of the window so no one would see my light. Then I laid out the plastic that I cut for a tent and laid it across a table and chairs that was up there like when my brother and I used to play fort when we were little. It didn't give me a lot of head room but at least I wasn't getting dripped on.

My teeth were chattering and I knew I had to get out of my wet clothes but I didn't have any dry ones to change into so I wound up stripping down and praying no one would come up those stairs until I could get something dry enough to put it back on. I used my tent rope to make a clothesline away from the roof leaks and laid all my wet clothes out to drip dry.

Next I checked my food. I congratulated myself for being smart enough to repack the mooshable stuff into Ziploc bags. The worst damage was to a Ziploc full of crackers that had turned to crumbs and the labels on some of the cans were coming off. I fixed the cans by using a permanent marker and writing what was in them on the top of the can before getting rid of the soggy paper labels.

I decided it was time to learn to use that camp stove so I crawled out from under the table again and carried it over to the ancient, enamel oven 'cause I was too scared of causing a fire if I tried to light it on the floor. The directions for the camp stove were as hard to understand as some of my AP Chemistry experiments had been but I finally managed to hook everything up and get it going. I was lucky the waterproof matches really were waterproof because I must've lost the bic lighter out of my pocket in one of my falls. While I heated water for soup and hot cocoa I tried to open up my maps so that they could dry.

The map of Tampa was a lost cause; I was upset but not heartbroken. The other maps survived better and now that they are completely dry I'm storing them in a Ziploc bag of their own. The water didn't take long at all to boil so I shut the stove off and ate my soup and drank my cocoa. It wasn't long after that that I realized there was light coming in around the window. I moved a little bit of the junk that I had blocked it with and could see that it was raining even harder. I was almost deaf to it by that time and hadn't noticed. The morning was dirty gray and I guess no one saw the sun that day unless it peeked out for a few minutes while I was sleeping.

I was still cold but I wasn't sure what I was going to do about it. I opened up the sleeping bag hoping it was only a little damp and got a surprise. The stuff bag that the sleeping bag gets shoved into is waterproof. I guess that makes sense but I never would have thought about it if I hadn't needed it. I felt silly for walking around in the buff like those people that used to live at Paradise Lakes back in Tampa … I think they called themselves "naturalists" or something to make it sound more polite than they walk around buck nekked all the time. At least with the sleeping bag I could finish warming up.

I had a hard time getting to sleep at first but when I finally did it was a deep sleep. I next woke up when there was a huge clap of thunder so loud it rattled the floor I was laying on. Obviously it was still raining and my clothes were still wet. I fixed myself some dinner and with nothing to do I dozed off and on all night and half this morning too.

I woke up about what I thought was lunch time, crept downstairs and dug a cat hole for a latrine and after taking care of what needed taking care of came back upstairs. I was sitting there bored out of my skull when I got the idea for this journal. I've been writing for hours but now the light is fading, hopefully so is the rain. My clothes are mostly dry now but they are also crunchy and scratchy and smell the same kind of funny as this building does. I'm going to fix dinner – or what I'm calling dinner – and pack everything back up. If it stops raining within the next couple of hours I'm going to head out and see how far I can get.

P.S. (Later) – rain has stopped and I'm all packed up. I'm leaving even if it isn't the best idea I've ever had because I heard some men walking around right after it got dark. They had flashlights and were going across to what looks like a fire station that is kitty corner to where I'm at. I've said my travelling prayers and I'll write more when I get to the next safe place.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I'm so close! I hadn't realized how close until I woke up today. I'm at this place called Ichetucknee Springs State Park.

Last night I left Newberry as soon as I could with a bright moon to light my way. What I saw by the light of the moon made me glad I was finally able to get gone. Cars had been pushed off the road all willy-nilly and lots of houses and businesses had doors that were either standing open or ripped off. Something bad had happened around there.

I pedaled for all I was worth 'cause no way did I want to get caught by anyone that was still living around that place. I made a quick thirteen miles to High Springs. That town looked even worse than Newberry. I think mostly because all the buildings on the main roads were wooden and some kind of fire had come through. I don't know how long ago but it was long enough that the burnt out buildings didn't smell anymore.

I remembered just in time that I had to break off from US41 and stay on US27. I had to u turn at the intersection but that was all. Another 10 miles and I had made Fort White. It was just as bad if not worse than High Springs.

There were still a couple of hours of dark left - not to mention I didn't see a place I was willing to stay for the night - so I kept going, but I got real tired real fast after that. Biking nearly 25 miles will do that to you; it doesn't matter that I'm a teenager. There was hardly any buildings after you left Fort White and the ones that were there, like the one that said it was some kind of auction house, were pretty messed up. And there were cars all over the place too. I couldn't figure out what must have happened because there were cars in both the coming and going lanes and in the middle where you are only supposed to turn. Most of the cars looked like they had been ransacked so there were clothes and toys everywhere.

Then I saw a sign for Ichetucknee and I remembered how my family used to go tubing there. I really, really wanted to see it again and I figured I'd be far enough off the road that no one would bother me. I turned into the south entrance in the park and had to slow way down. A little ways in there was a big truck parked across the road, I guess so cars couldn't get into the park.

I started getting real careful in case someone was around with the same idea as I had. The door to the entrance station was empty and the door was hanging wide open and it smelled like a critter of some type had used it for a bathroom. The further I got into the park the more it felt deserted, like no one was home. I was more scared of that feeling than I was of thinking there might be people and the feeling made me want to find a place to hide real quick.

But it wasn't real quick. The wind was picking up and the sky was that shade of dark before the dawn that I had come to recognize before I ran across what I was looking for; it was the concession stand and the storm covers were over all the windows. Leaves, twigs, and other trash that was blown all up around the place told me that nobody was using it and hadn't for a while so I gave it a try.

When I looked at the door on this place I knew I wasn't going to get in easy. Not only was the door one of those commercial metal ones, so was the doorframe. It also had a keyed bolt above the doorknob set. The windows were all covered but I was in luck that they hadn't covered the exhaust grill. I stood on one of those big heavy wooden trash cans and used the bolt cutters to snip a off one side of the grilling and then I shoved my big screwdriver under that and pried and bent the grill until I could climb through.

I left my backpack and bike outside, climbed into the hole putting a pretty good rip in the knees of my jeans, and then climbed down using the gas range like a ladder. I hurried over to the door and was rewarded with the locks being thumb bolts on the inside of the building.

I drug my bike and bag inside just in time to miss a blustery, early morning rainstorm; probably the remnants of the storm that had held me prisoner in Newberry. I threw both of the thumb bolts and then stood trying to decide what to do. It wasn't long before I didn't need my headlamp any longer either; there wasn't a lot of light but there was enough. The floor was mostly clean so I threw the plastic sheet down and then put my sleeping bag on that.

I was hungry but too tired to cook so I ate my last can of beanie weenies and hoped my stomach wouldn't be as upset as the last can made me. Just because no one was around it didn't mean that making certain sounds wasn't embarrassing which reminded me to use the employee wash room that was tucked over in the corner behind a flimsy wooden door painted the same industrial white as the rest of the inside of the building. It had one of those composting toilets so I didn't have to worry about the smell so long as I left the lid down.

I barely recognized myself in the mirror over the sink. Daddy would have said I looked rode hard and hung up wet. Some of the country things they used to say drove me crazy but I found out after I didn't get to hear them any more I missed the phrases. I used to say them to other people just to see the reaction I would get. Some people laughed but most of the time it just reinforced that I was strange and different from everybody else.

I decided I would worry about everything after I'd gotten some sleep. The floor was hard but I was almost too tired to notice it and went to sleep using the cafeteria lady's sweater as my pillow.

Stupid birds woke me up. I didn't know what I was hearing at first. As soon as my heart climbed back in my chest I realized it was those big ravens. A bunch of them were roosting or whatever the heck those birds do outside the "order here/pay here" windows. The sound that their claws make when they walk across stuff is nasty. Scritch-click-scratch-peck-peck-scritch and then they let out this really big "caw!" as if I really wanted to hear what they had to say.

There was no going back to sleep with that noise so I packed up and tried to put myself in order. I'd had time when I was stuck in Newberry to finally brush all the tangles out of my hair again. When I was little Daddy wouldn't let anyone cut my hair, he even trimmed it when it needed it unless he was TDY or something. When they died my hair was passed my waist. When I was in a coma there was this lady candy striper that would do my hair; she even kept coming when I woke up. She left to go take care of her mother right before I had to go live with Aunt Wilma and one of the first things that Aunt Wilma did "to set me free" was to have some beautician friend of hers cut my hair and perm it. I was still in a wheelchair and wasn't talking a lot yet. I was so upset that Aunt Wilma's friend tried to talk her out of it but Aunt Wilma said my dad was "archaic" and that the new hair cut would give me a new lease on life. I looked like a poodle that had stuck its tail in a light socket.

My hair is longer and the perm has finally grown out but Aunt Wilma would never let me grow my hair passed my shoulder blades. At the warehouse it got to the middle of my back. There's no one to tell me what to do or how to look and I think I'm going to let my hair grow passed my rear end just to prove I can. And I remembered to grab all the hairbobs and clips and stuff when I was going through all those lockers at the school; it was getting too hot to let my hair fly every which a way.

I was still yawning so I knew that I hadn't got as much sleep as I needed but I decided to use my extra time and look around. I didn't have any use for the Styrofoam cups but I grabbed some more napkins to replace the ones from my stash that I've been using as toilet paper and Kleenex. There really wasn't much but I grabbed some salt and pepper packets and some packets of vinegar and relish. Something had gotten into the ketchup and I didn't see any mustard at all. The was a rack of candies and I tossed all of it into a gallon sized Ziploc … chewing gum, Rolaids, breath mints, Lifesavers, Sprees, and a few other things; no chocolate which was a bummer though I suppose I should be glad because it gives me zits.

There were a few packets of powdered hot cocoa and powdered apple cider and then these packets of that white powdery stuff people put in their coffee and a couple bottles of that syrup that is supposed to make coffee taste good – hazelnut, vanilla, Swiss mocha, yada, yada. I never understood it when my friends would drink coffee and Aunt Wilma wouldn't let sweets in the house because she said it caused dental bills to go up. Weird huh? I decided to take the packages of coffee anyway because I figured since there wasn't anyone to boss me around maybe it was time I picked up a bad habit or three.

Yeah, I know that sounds dorky but there really isn't anyone to tell me what to do anymore. I know I'm going to have to figure some things out before I make big mistakes but I think I'll figure things out eventually.

The concession stand wasn't real big and all the good stuff had already been taken away; there wasn't even any bottled water. That led me to sit down and measure everything out. I had a little over a gallon of water left. I had a couple of days worth of food left but all the granola bars were gone. Looking at the food made me hungry so I ate a can of fruit cocktail and chased it with some peanut butter crackers. I drank the liquid the fruit was in so I only needed a swallow of water to get the syrup off my teeth to be satisfied.

I've decided I'm not in great shape but I should be fine especially if I'm as close to my goal as I think I am. After I repacked my backpack for a second time I sat down with my trusty map again and started adding up the miles. Twenty-five miles! That's all, maybe even a little less as I'm guessing the distance once I'm on SR49. But even worst case and it is twenty-five miles that means I only have one more night on the road!

I'm definitely leaving just as soon as the sun is down. Look out Sparkleberry Ranch, here I come!

( _next morning_ )

Too tired and excited to write! I'M HOME I'M HOME I'M HOME!


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I've gone almost a whole week without writing in this journal. Mr. Kramer would have given me "the eye" for that but I have a good excuse. This living on your own by yourself thing isn't turning out to be as easy as I thought it would be. You have to do absolutely everything yourself. If it has to be cleaned up, you are the only one to do it. If you want to eat you have to fix it. There isn't anyone to ask how to do something; you have to figure it out. So far I'm doing pretty good, but maybe having one other person around would be cool.

I'll start back where I left off and write down all the craziness so I won't forget how things really were that way if I ever do get to grow up and have kids and they have kids and I actually become a grandmother or great grandmother then I'll tell them true stories and not exaggerated ones. And if they don't believe me I can show them where I wrote it down years before they were born and prove I'm not making things up.

I was too excited to stay in the concession stand until it was all the way dark so I decided to walk around and see if I recognized anything. It kinda looked familiar in places but I didn't have a lot of time to explore like I wanted to. Maybe I'll go back this summer and figure out how to go tubing down the river again. It doesn't look like anyone is using the place and it is a state park so I wouldn't be trespassing; at least I don't think so.

I stuck my hand in the water near the ramp where you pull the tubes out of the water and man was it cold; like ice water. I nearly fell in because the concrete boat ramp was all slicky from algae. I guess no one has used it or cleaned it off in a while. The water was so clear you could see the bottom even way out in the middle of the river when I was looking from the boardwalk. That's about all I had time for because it had started getting dark plus no one had mowed the grass in the park in a long time so things were either sandy with no grass at all or the grass was really high which made the skitters worse. The doggone things kept getting inside the rip at the knee of my blue jeans and my knee was covered with mosquito bites which were annoying and itchy.

All the light was going out of the sky when I pushed my bike to the entrance gate and waited on the other side of the big truck. I still had time to kill before I could get on the road so I looked around in the truck. One of the door windows was broke so it was easy enough to stick my hand in and unlock it so I could open the door and climb in. There really wasn't anything in there but it wasted a couple of minutes until it was dark. I did find a lighter stuck above the sun visor but it was only like a quarter full. I still took it anyway; two little boxes of matches aren't going to last forever.

When it was dark enough that I didn't think anyone would see me and my eyes had adjusted I took off. Weaving around the closely packed cars really slowed me down. I would have moved over into the grassy side of the road but that would have been worse. Nobody had kept their cars in the proper lanes and some people with trucks and stuff looked like they had tried to go around however they could get around. The grass was too tall to peddle through anyway, not as tall as in the park but bad enough.

I finally got to CR49 and turned right and it opened back up and I was able to make better time, at least until I got to the next big intersection which was CR49 and SR247. The little town at the intersection is called Beachville and I measured that I had biked about ten miles. There was a gas station there that looked like it had blown up and there was all this debris everywhere and some cars were turned over. The road was still wide at that point so I was able to see by moonlight and it looked freaky, like something out of some end-of-the-world movie.

I know I haven't written about it much because I was trying not to think about it too hard but I kept wondering where all the people were. I mean, I know the places I came through aren't Tampa but I had only seen a few people here and there. And if I could believe Jeff and Janie some kind of bomb threat made most of the people in Tampa run away. Well, where did all those people go? There were cars all over the place the last couple of days but no people. Did the flu and stuff kill that many? I hadn't seen any bodies except for those two in that house and it sure wasn't the flu that killed them. Now that I'm staying in one place I've seen a couple more people but I don't think near as many as I should be seeing.

After Beachville the road finally started clearing up. There were a few cars here and there but they were pushed over to the side of road. There were even a couple of tractors on the side of the road. The road was also getting darker. The homesteads and trees grew a lot closer to the edge of the road. There were some fields but there were also a lot of planted pines and other types of tree farms. The trees were big enough that they took away my moonlight so I had to slow down again.

I had one dog chase me but it didn't follow me far before going back to the house it had come from. I figured that meant that people still were living in that one. I smelled cows but didn't see any. And a skunk, I definitely smelled a skunk; that was gross. That smell hung around for a long time and I didn't have any car air conditioner to thin it out.

There were a bunch of cars at the intersection of CR49 and CR252 too but they were all pushed off to the side. Most of these had their tires missing. I didn't have time to check out and see if they had anything else missing but I did stop for a potty break and some water. I was hungry but I didn't want to take the time to dig stuff out of the backpack so I started sucking on some Lifesavers; wintergreen and buttered rum are my favorite flavors but I decided to save those and suck on the weird tropical flavored ones instead. They were OK and they kept my mouth wet which helped.

The trees backed up from the road after a little bit so it was easier to see again but then the moon went behind some clouds and it got really, really, really dark. I could still see kind of but not very far around me. By the time the clouds moved on the trees were practically on top of the road again.

I'd never had to really pay attention to how exactly long it was until you got to the road that goes back to Sparkleberry Ranch and we always came from US90 so when I peddled and realized I had made it all the way to US90 I knew I had missed my turn off. I was really mad and got kind of scared too. What if after being away so long I couldn't find it?

I knew it wasn't too far from US90 and I knew what the address was. I remember what the gate looked like and I knew it would be locked but only closed with one of those pinch clips because the electric company had to get back in there for the meters. I finally spotted it but it was no wonder I had missed it. There was a truck in the ditch by the entrance and the grass and saw briers were so bad they hid all but the posts that were made out of old railroad ties. The truck looked kinda familiar but it didn't really register. I found out why a couple of days later.

I suppose I need to describe how Sparkleberry Ranch is set up. Mom and Dad owned the dirt road that goes back to the house so I guess that means that I do now. The road is a mile long and has two dog legs in it. The first third of the road is only thirty feet wide and is bounded on both sides by twenty-acre lots. Only the one on the south side of the road has someone living on it but the trailer was all torn up with the siding coming off and everything last time I was there. The county must've made someone haul it off because there isn't one there now. The other twenty was owned by some family from Coral Gables that used to come up and ride four-wheelers on it. There wasn't a house; they used to bring an RV with them. Daddy didn't care for either of those neighbors because they let their trash blow all over the place and didn't pick it up which meant it was always blowing into our road.

Momma called that section of the road "Magnolia Drive" because we planted a magnolia seedling at every fence post on the north side. Most of them were still alive and I could tell they'd grown a lot since I was here last because they were taller than I was even when I was sitting on the bike. At the end of that section of the road is a gully that stays wet all year. I remember Daddy telling Momma it was because it had a clay bottom to it. This is one of the places that Momma liked to go to pick black berries but we had to be careful 'cause it could get snake-y. The grass was bad, but not as bad as I had expected. I think it is because it is still April and the grass hasn't really started growing crazy. The grass came up to my knees but it wasn't too thick so I could peddle through it. Right after going passed the gully you get to the first dogleg and it makes a sharp turn south.

The road is about forty feet wide for this third and Momma called it the Avenue of the Oaks because of the really big live oak trees that form a dense, moss-covered canopy. Momma had tried to plant some dogwoods along the fence line here but not many are left. Two years after we planted them we had a real dry year and the deer ate the tops out of almost all of them. Momma was so mad that she told Daddy to be sure and fill the freezer full of venison as soon as he could. The canopy doesn't let a lot of light in even in the middle of the day so the grass is never bad here. Plus it is part of an old wagon road so the ruts are kind of permanent. And where the tree roots are close to the surface the tall grass can't get much purchase to take over.

The end of this part of the road doglegs to the left and the last section is sixty feet wide. This part of the road has oaks on one side too but they don't cover the whole road. On the other side of the road is an eighty-acre square full of planted and natural loblolly pines. The grass on this stretch of the road was to the middle of my thighs and there was no way I could ride my bike through it. After I tripped for the third time I decided it was silly to break my neck this close to my goal so I put my headlamp on. I put it on dim to save batteries. That wasn't a lot of light but at least I could see the tree trash on the ground and not trip over it. There aren't any houses that can be seen from this part of the road so that didn't worry me either.

The road ends right at the NW corner of our forty-acre square. Daddy built a really nice wide gate here with some fancy brickwork and pillars. But the gate was standing open instead of chained closed, that worried me and I began to wonder if someone had moved into my house.

I started to hurry but forced myself to slow down after a few feet. The gate may be wide but the road back to the house isn't. Daddy left most of our forty wooded and they added new trees every year so that we could keep our "ag exemption." I'm not sure why that was so important but Daddy thought it was. He said the exemption and the utility easement was the only thing that kept the property affordable whatever that means.

You can't see the house until you are right up on it and even then if you don't turn your head the right way you'll drive right past it. Aunt Wilma was always threatening to have someone come mow down a bunch of the trees but the lawyer never gave her permission; she hated that. The forty is fenced in with five strands of barbed wire on heavy duty posts. Every so many feet instead of a regular post there was a railroad tie. I asked Daddy why one time and he said, "To make little girls like you ask questions." That was his standard answer if my question was silly or if he didn't have an answer to give me. The worst trouble I ever got in was one time when Daddy was asking my brother why he'd fallen out of a tree he wasn't supposed to climb in the first place and I replied for him by saying, "To make grown ups like you ask questions." I had a hard time sitting down at dinner that night. Daddy would put up with a lot of stuff but sass wasn't one of them.

The utility easement is where these big ol' wooden electrical poles run right through the property from one side to the other. There were gates at either end of the easement but nobody ever used them because there was a sinkhole that had developed at one end of easement that was too hard for anything bigger than Daddy's Kabota tractor to get around and since Daddy wouldn't give them permission to cut into our woods any more than they already had and the power people didn't want to pay to fill in the sink hole we were hardly ever bothered by them coming onto our property.

I finally got back to the house and just stared. I'd worked so hard to get here and now I wasn't sure what to do. The moon was nice and bright and bounced off of the white trim that looked even whiter next to the dark red and gray brickwork and dark green shutters. The other thing that was white and stood out was the roll-down storm doors and the accordion shutters on the windows. I knew I needed to get to the security pole and the keys that locked the shutters before I could go any further and I was dead dog tired. I thought about just crawling up on the porch and going to sleep but that really wasn't an option.

Momma and Daddy liked to plan for problems; I don't know if it was the way they were raised or if was because of Daddy's job or what. For this particular problem Daddy had taken some hard PVC pipe that had a glued on cap on one end and a threaded cap on the other. In this long piece of pipe he put a pole to open the role down doors and a set of master keys for the shutters and main door locks. He buried two of these "just in case" packages; one was in the orchard and the other was way on the other side of the property near a big piece of limestone rock.

I went out to the orchard and over to a concrete patio bench which I moved. I bent down and started digging in the soft sand underneath and within about five minutes I had the PVC pipe uncovered enough I could pull it out of the ground. It took me longer to pry it open and I wound up having to chunk it on the concrete of the porch to crack the end off. As soon as I got the pole out I started opening the roll-down on the front door, but only high enough that I could get to the door lock. Then I had to roll it a little higher so I could roll the bike inside.

After shutting and locking the door and rolling the door back down using the widget on the inside of the house I got the shakes so bad and sat down and just cried like a baby. I don't know why. It took me a long time to stop and I couldn't until I noticed how I was rocking back and forth and holding myself. That scared me as bad as not being able to stop crying had. Even though I was able to stop crying I couldn't stop shaking. I don't remember much after that but I do remember walking into what was my parents' room, ripping the dust cover off the bed, pulling the covers down, and climbing in.

I must have taken my shoes off but I can't remember when cause when I finally woke up they were dumped by the side of the bed. I slept a long time but with no clock I don't know how long. I woke up so hungry and thirsty my whole body ached. I got up and stumbled to find my backpack and drank a whole bottle of water while I dumped the food that was left on the floor trying to decide what to eat. I settled on fruit cocktail again and then ate two packages of peanut butter crackers too.

That didn't leave me much food and what there was had to be cooked like the mac-n-cheese or the potatoes au gratin. I was still hungry but not hungry enough to go to the trouble of cooking. I ate a package of skittles while I wandered inside the house trying to think what I was supposed to do now that I was home.

Momma and Daddy built the house themselves, or at least as much as the rules allowed. Daddy would get mad sometimes that there were things that he could do but that the State of Florida said he had to hire somebody with a license to do. There were also all these inspections that the work had to pass before the guy from the county would initial it so we could do the next thing on the house. And some of the way Daddy wanted to do things made the county guy give us a hard time. It's not that it wasn't up to code, it was that it went way over what the guidelines said we had to do.

I enjoyed how cool it was inside the house and that got me thinking about the time the inspector came out and pitched a hissy about the fact that Daddy had filled all of the cells in the concrete blocks and installed specially made privacy windows. The inspector kept saying it was "unusual" and Dad kept asking him if it wasn't against the rules why he wouldn't sign off on it. They went round and round about it like a couple of bulldogs but Daddy won; Daddy nearly always won. Daddy said it was because he had right on his side, Momma said it was because Daddy could be more pigheaded and run them around until they would sign it just to have done with it. Either way it worked because after a while the inspector would just come out, look, sign the paper and leave without saying a word.

The house is very sturdy. Both floors are solid concrete block with solid Georgia brick on the outside. There are four bedrooms and three full bathrooms; a great room that is the family room with a big fireplace, dining room, and coat closet; a nice kitchen, utility room, and pantry. What was originally supposed to be an oversized two car garage became storage and Momma's summer/canning kitchen.

The upstairs is kind of weird. Part of the upstairs anyone can find out about and part of the upstairs is secret. On the summer kitchen end of the house the second floor is made up of two bonus rooms; one was going to be Momma's sewing and craft room and the other was going to be like a library/study area. The rooms are dried in … that's what Daddy called finishing a room off … but hadn't been decorated before the car wreck. The other part of the upstairs had two access ways; a set of pull down stairs that was hidden in the master bedroom. You could look at where those stairs were all day and never know they are there because they looked like a section of recessed ceiling that had that stuff called crown molding around the edge to hide it. The chain to pull the ladder down was hidden in the fancy looking ceiling light in the middle of the rectangle.

The other way into the secret upstairs area was by a set of very narrow and steep stairs that you got to by going through the coat closet in the great room. I hadn't dared go up there since the wreck but I knew I needed to just to make sure that some of the secrets that Daddy made were still up there. There was nothing in the coat closet that I had to move so it was easy to slide the hidden panel and climb the stairs. It wasn't as hot up there as I had thought it would be but it was dusty. I guess Daddy's system only part way worked.

To keep it from being an oven up there Daddy had built in both passive and solar ventilation. I don't remember exactly how it worked even though Daddy explained it at the time – I have some memory gaps from the coma – but it pulls the cooler air from down stairs and forces the hot hair out through a duct that empties into the soffit area. There are two dormer windows up there too. From the outside of the house the dormers look like fake ones that people use to decorate their house with but these actually work. You can't see into the house from the outside unless a light is on so Daddy installed heavy shutters on the inside of the windows to go with the accordion shutters on the outside. That's why I had no worries about turning on the overhead lights … only they didn't work at first.

I finally remembered I would have to hook the leads from the lights into the wire that connects to the solar panels on the outside of the house. Uncle Charlie used to wonder what the panels were for until the lawyer said they were for the security lights. Well, they were … just not only for the security lights.

It took a few minutes but the little LED lights started to glow and I was able confirm things still looked like I remembered. In the middle of the room was a great big box that that I knew housed the main central heat and air unit. There was an access hatch up here for if Daddy needed to work on it but you'd never know that if you tried to access the unit through the main intake vent. Daddy had shelves and worktables all around the walls. The room was actually pretty rough; Daddy said it was a work-in-progress. It had this special insulating on the ceiling and walls but no drywall yet. The floor was thick plywood with a couple of hatchways in it so that Daddy could access wiring and stuff for the house. I knew between the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of this hidden room was insulation and sound proofing so that you could be walking around up in the dormer room (that's what Momma called the room 'cause she thought it was silly to call it a "hidden room" when we all knew it was there) and no one downstairs could hear you at all unless you really dropped something heavy and even then the sound seemed to come from outside instead of above you.

What I had really come up there was to check to see if the boxes were still there. And they were, a lot more than I remember there being. I guess Daddy must have bought more stuff and not told Momma about it. On the sides of the boxes were the words Provident Pantry and Honeyville. There was supposed to be enough for a family of four for three months which I guess meant that I should be able to live on it for a year but maybe not. The only time I heard Momma get upset at the money that Daddy was spending was the time that he spent some of her grocery money on this long term storage food.

Momma was really upset because she got embarrassed at the grocery store when the debit card wouldn't work and then they refused to accept her check even though it was on a different account. Momma didn't raise her voice very much but that time she really raised cane. I remember my brother and I being sent to our rooms and still being able to hear her and Daddy fussing about it. She said that she could preserve better tasting food in jars than that stuff in the big cans and we wouldn't have to worry about water for it either, and it would have cost less money. She also said that they had had an agreement that Daddy was going to stop bringing all that stuff home from the Base like the leftover pieces from the MREs that no one wanted.

I guess they fixed the problem that night because the next morning they were all lovey-dovey again but a fight like that is something a kid never forgets … especially when my mom was usually really sweet and nice and gave way to Daddy all the time. I never heard them fight about it again but it wasn't something that was brought up much either, at least not within my hearing.

I went to the boxes and opened the first one and pulled out the first big can. It was labeled Mountain House Chili Mac. The directions on it seemed pretty easy – just add water and cook – but then I read that after you open it you have to use the whole can up within a week. No way; even if I ate the stuff for every meal for a week I might not be able to use it up in time.

Next box I opened was labeled Provident Pantry Creamy Potato Soup. It was just as easy to fix but the directions said it would last up to a year if stored in an airtight container after opening. That I could handle. I decided I would look at all the other stuff some other time, took my can of freeze dried soup downstairs and went out to the summer kitchen to take care of my next important job and this one was Momma's doing.

Momma came from a family of small time farmers. My grandfather only had 80 acres and made a living but just barely. Momma said growing up she didn't notice because all of her friends were in the same boat. She didn't have a TV until she was eight years old and she was thirteen before they had indoor plumbing and it was only as reliable as the old electric well pump. Granddaddy and Memaw had built a new modern house by the time I came along but they used the old one as a storage building so I saw what it looked like. It wasn't bad it was just really old. It was an old log cabin that someone had put clapboard siding on and looked all mismatched.

Momma didn't ever want to have to go to a creek to get water again in her lifetime but she knew that storms knock out power all the time and because we didn't live at the property full time we never knew what we were going to find when we got there, especially if it was the middle of the night when we arrived. She also didn't want to have to deal with cleaning up from frozen pipes. We didn't have that problem in Tampa but north Florida can get below freezing at night a week or so out of the year. To prevent this Daddy made the plumbing so that the well bladder, the hot water tank, and the well pump was inside an insulated room in the summer kitchen. Also in this room was a handpump.

Uncle Charlie tried and tried and tried to make that pump work. He was convinced that if he pumped the handle often enough for long enough it would start spitting out water. When it never worked he used to needle me about Daddy having installed it wrong. I always had to leave the house when he started that up or I was going to laugh myself silly and I would have gotten punishment chores on top of punishment chores. The trick was you had to prime the pump.

I was still laughing at the memory of Uncle Charlie getting all red in the face and frustrated when I remembered what I had to prime the pump with. Water. And I didn't have that much left. I hadn't liked the idea of using the muddy water from the gully but I figured I might not have much choice if I couldn't get the well primed. I said a prayer, used the last of my drinking water, and then nearly panicked when it took longer for the water to come up the pipe than I thought it should. But once it did I had all the fresh drinking and cooking water I could want.

I wasn't going to be stupid though. I refilled all of my water bottles and a couple of extra jars from the summer kitchen cabinets in case something went wrong. I also filled bucket after bucket of water to take a bath with. When I found I couldn't even put my feet in the tub because the water was so cold I decided to let it sit overnight and hopefully warm up some.

With water chores finished I cooked my dinner and then sat down to do some serious thinking.


	10. Chapter 9

_**Chapter 9**_

It had come time to prove that I could be self-sufficient and self-supporting like those emancipation papers had said. I remember the work sheets I had to fill out; they made me feel so stupid and helpless. But now I can at least say that I have the big three – shelter, food, and water. The house is mine free and clear … well, technically it is in trust for me until I turn 18 but since that is less than a year and a half away I don't figure that is a problem. That's the shelter. The food is upstairs. The water is from the hand pump.

Next came the tricky part. You had to fill out these papers and be able to tell the judge what you would do if your first plans didn't work out. The land that this house sits on is mine free and clear too. It is held in trust just like the house and the road. If something happens to the house – like a fire or hurricane – I figure I can live in the woods like Jungle Jane until I can build a shelter. I'm not great at building things but I can follow directions and I can learn.

If something happens to the pump and I can't figure out how to fix it – like an inside part wears out or the well runs dry – there is the gully and the sink hole that both have water in them most of the year. There are rivers, lakes, and ponds all over the place around here, I'd just have to figure out how to get the water and bring it back. Just in case that happens I put down on my list to fill all the containers I could with water and keep them filled. And I remembered that Momma's rain barrels were out in the barn. I added attaching the barrels to the down spouts on the gutters to my list. People used to ask why Daddy built such a sharp pitched roof. The barrels are one reason. One of the things that Momma wanted down the road was a cistern but they never got to it. A cistern sounds cool but I'm not sure how to build one. It might be in one of Daddy's books, I'll have to look.

Food was iffier than the first two. First off, that Mountain House stuff is going to be a problem. I'm one person, how am I going to eat a whole can of one type of food in a week? The Provident Pantry stuff is much better but I can tell you that neither type is going to last as long as they say it is supposed to? The soup is supposed to be one cup per serving and that the can holds 48 servings. I'm a girl and I eat more than a cup of soup at a time. That means I can't count on that food lasting as long amount-wise as the cans say it should. And I seem to be hungry all the time now, I guess it is because I was on such short rations at the warehouse and didn't have much food after I left. Then all that biking to get here. Some days I feel like a cow and could graze all day long. I know some of that is because I get the munchies during my monthlies but that only makes the situation worse. I added taking inventory to my list. I don't know what I'm going to do about bread either. One, I don't know how to make it and two, to make it you need flour and other junk that I don't think I have here.

Momma and Daddy planted an orchard as soon as they bought the land a little over seven years ago; we celebrated my ninth birthday with our first camping trip here. The fruit trees were just starting to put off fruit the last time we were here as a family. I guess they still do 'cause they did when we'd come during the summer for the Week of Torture. Aunt Wilma always had some bad kids; they used to tear up stuff on the property. They'd pull leaves and limbs off the trees climbing in them. One year a kid got the wire cutters and clipped the barbed wire fence in a bunch of different places all around the property and that made the neighbors angry 'cause then they had to catch their cows that got all mixed up together running loose on our forty. They put holes in the walls inside that Uncle Charlie had to patch. The patches don't look bad, it was just the principle of the matter and when I would get into fights with the kids who were tearing things up Aunt Wilma would punish me for being selfish and "make an example of me" because she said I had so much and those other kids had so little. She may have meant well but she just never understood how it made me feel. The lawyer got onto Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie one time and told them that if it happened again the repair costs would be deducted from the fee they got for taking care of me. It didn't happen after that because there were new rules; Uncle Charlie started keeping the "out of bounds" places locked up.

In addition to the orchard Momma planted a couple of berry hedges – like red and black raspberries. I can't remember what the other ones were. There are lots of blackberry bushes on our forty too … they are worse than saw briers and they grow everywhere no matter how you try to rein them in. There are a bunch of pecan trees on the side of the forty that used to belong to an old farmstead. I know I'll get blueberries as long as some animal doesn't get to them first; the bushes in the orchard are full. I'm sure there are lots of things out there if I just look. I'd also like to try and grow a garden but I don't have any seeds. You need seeds to grow a garden so I put "look for seeds" on my list.

I don't know what I'll do for meat, but maybe I'll just have to go vegetarian. I like meat so doing that will make me sad but you do what you have to do; beggars can't be choosers. I might be able to learn to fish but I nearly barfed during biology class when we were dissecting fetal pigs. The idea of gutting and cleaning fish is just too gross. There are squirrels, a bunch of them, I supposed if I absolutely had to I could try and rig up some kind of trap but I'm afraid that I'll wind up like Wile E. Coyote when he is trying to catch the Roadrunner.

I smelled cows on CR49 but they probably belong to someone. I sure don't know how to take care of a cow … or a horse … or chickens … or goats … or any of the other animals except maybe a cat or a dog. I'd like an animal or two but only if I can figure out how to keep it from starving to death. I think it is going to be more important to learn how to keep me from starving to death before I take on an animal; just like babies I bet they are more trouble to take care of than you think.

Those were the basics that were the most important except for the next one. I'm a girl. I'm a girl alone. Daddy's gun safe is in the dormer room but I still haven't found the keys to it. Daddy hid it different places so I'll keep looking but I still remember what is in there … a .22 rifle, a shotgun that used to be my grandfather's, an old German hand gun from WW2 that is kind of beat up that some guy gave him as collateral for a loan that was never paid back, and then a gun that Daddy called a Mark III. The Mark III is the only gun I have every fired except for my brother's BB gun. I never did hit any of those stupid cans. Daddy just laughed and said it took practice and that he would teach me some day. Some day never came. I'm sure the books are in Daddy's filing cabinet up there; he never threw anything like that away. But even if I find the books it won't do me any good unless I find the keys to the gun cabinet. And even if I find the books, find the keys and get the guns out I don't know if they are going to be in good shape or not; they've been in that cabinet for four years and I think guns get rusty and junk on the inside and have to be cleaned in a special way or they can blow up in your face. So, for now at least and maybe for a long while, the guns are out.

I was beginning to run out of things to worry about until I pulled out one of Daddy's books called _Back to Basics_. That book gave me lots of things to worry about. My little fuel containers weren't going to last forever so how was I going to heat up the water I needed to fix the food I had? My clothes and shoes weren't going to last forever so what was I going to do about that? What happened if my "mode of transportation" broke? I didn't have any spare bicycle parts though I think Daddy's tools should still be in the shed. I realized I didn't have much in the way of toilet paper, Kleenex and stuff like that so I decided to use rags for cleaning up messes and be careful about how much I used when I went to the bathroom. For Kleenex I could use a bandana like my grandparents did, but how was I going to clean stuff when it got dirty? What about soap and shampoo and stuff like that? I'd already gone without for long stretches so I knew it wouldn't kill me but I like being clean. What about light? I think there is some stuff still hidden around the house, I know there is, I just have to remember where it is and how to get to it. But what if I can't find it or it isn't there? What happens when my batteries run out? What about time? No watch, no clock … how was I going to figure out what time it is? Did I even need to know what time it is or does it no longer matter?

And worse, what happens if I get sick or have an accident? Who will help me? That's almost too scary to think about so I've got it at the bottom of my list 'cause there isn't anything I can do about it right now anyway.

The sun was going down by the time I finished fixing another cup of soup, cleaning up, and other stuff. Like the debate coach used to say when things were getting too hot, "Let's table this discussion for another time." I went to bed when the light went away to save my batteries. Of course the batteries died the next day while I was carrying a couple of more cans down from the dormer room but there isn't anything I can do about it so I "tabled the discussion." I'm doing that with a bunch of stuff 'cause if I think about it too hard I get a stomach ache and have to go to the bathroom.

The next day I decided to take a look around the outside of the house. I was nervous at first, walking around out in the open. But then I felt like a doofus. What was I supposed to do, turn vampire and only come out at night?!

The outside of the house looked in good shape except there is this ginormous wasp nest inside one of the upstairs security shutters. I'm not allergic to bees or wasps but I don't have anything to kill them with. I pulled out my handy dandy list and added wasp spray to my growing "grocery list."

The grass around the house isn't too bad and when I'm ready to cut it I can use the swing blade I found in the shed. I haven't decided when I'm going to cut it yet because I haven't decided how "lived in" I want the house to look. If it starts looking lived in and someone stumbles across it then maybe something bad could happen. But, if I don't take care of things bugs and mice and stuff could get into the house and that would definitely be bad. Daddy made the house as tight as possible but this is Florida and bugs are gonna happen, it is just the facts of life. I just don't want them to happen any more than necessary.

This next part had me pretty upset for a while but I guess it is just another one of those things I can't do anything about. For some reason the master key I have doesn't work on the roll-downs on the bay doors on the barn. I think those locks got changed and I think I know by who. I was getting worried but the master key still worked on the side door so I got in that way. But when I got in I had a shock. Daddy's tractor and all the attachments are gone. So is the riding lawn mower. I bet Uncle Charlie sold it to pay off some bad debts he and Aunt Wilma had when they remodeled their house. I'd heard them fighting with the lawyer telling them they had to do it to make room for me to live there but the lawyer wouldn't give them any money because what they did was build them a new master bedroom suite, a new master bathroom, and changed the cabinets and counter tops out in the kitchen.

Uncle Charlie would come up and check on Sparkleberry Ranch sometimes by himself. I bet on one of those times he sold the Kabota and lawn mower. I was just so mad I could have spit. I didn't know how to drive the tractor and I didn't even have any fuel for it even if I could have but … like I said, I was mad. It didn't look like anything else was missing but I'm still not sure. I don't know what happened to Momma's jewelry or Daddy's knife collection but that stuff could be in all the taped up boxes up in the bonus rooms (that was one of the "off limits" areas).

I was so mad I went stomping around looking to see if anything else was missing. Then I went stomping around outside, picked up a stick and started swishing it around. That's probably the only reason I saw it … him … what used to be him. I know it had to be him because he had the Cargill work shirt on with his name patch stitched to the pocket. Charlie. He'd been dead a long time, long enough that the animals had got to him and not all of him was there and what was there wasn't too gross. Or maybe I should say he was less gross than the couple I stumbled across on the bike trip. He was over by the old rotten wood pile. There was a broken liquor bottle not too far from the body. I never knew Uncle Charlie to drink but maybe he did and he hid a bottle in the woodpile so Aunt Wilma wouldn't know.

I'll probably never know for sure but I'm guessing he must have come up here after all us kids got shipped to the school. How long after I have no idea but he had enough gas to get from Tampa to Live Oak apparently which meant maybe right before or right after the bomb scare. He got here but never made it in the house. I don't know if he forgot or lost the keys or didn't have a pole for the roll-downs. At some point he got to wanting what he hid in the wood pile. And … and this is the big jump here … he reached into the old wood pile and in addition to the bottle of liquor he pulled out a snake that bit him. We've got rattlers around here and they don't like being disturbed. For all his pretending he was a big outdoorsman Uncle Charlie was really a city boy. And if he had already been drinking (the truck stuck in the ditch) it wouldn't have taken much for a poor choice to turn into a last choice.

I dug a hole right beside him as deep as the tree roots would let me and then I used the shovel to roll what his soul had left behind into the hole. I felt bad but I'm not having much luck really grieving for him or Aunt Wilma. I don't think feeling bad is the same thing as grieving really. Maybe I will later but I've seen so much of death that I'm to the point I just turn it over to God. I don't get to say where people go anyway, they choose that when they're still alive. It sounds awful now that I've written it out but I'd be a hypocrite to lie in my own journal. I'll find a piece of limestone someplace and mark the spot. That's about all I can do.

From the woodpile I went to the orchard which is hidden from view too unless you know it is there. Daddy cut the orchard out of a section of loamy soil near the house but left a nearly impenetrable wind break on all four sides. The only way into the orchard is the tractor gate and the walk-in gate. Daddy put gates there to keep animals out; Momma just laughed at him for wasting the energy trying. Most of the trees in the orchard are semi-dwarf. I know I used to know what that meant but … I hate it when I come across a "gap." Dr. Kramer is the only one that told me not to worry at them. He said it isn't uncommon for coma patients to have memory gaps; sometimes the gaps go away and sometimes they don't. By now I figure all the ones that were going to fill back in would have and anything left over I'm going to have to fill in with something new. I spent the best part of yesterday out in the orchard cutting grass and raking it up into tiny hillocks and then hauling the grass off to the hayfield where I hope no one will notice it.

It took me a while to figure out Momma's drawing of the main orchard. I finally matched up a tree with an old tree tag that was still legible and as soon as I got that the rest fell into place. There are peaches, apples, plums, nectarines, pears, figs, persimmons, paw paws, mayhaws, two blueberry hedges, a couple of pomegranate bushes (I think, they seem kind of small for them to have been planted seven years ago), and crabapples. There is another place on the other side of the house where she and Daddy planted some Chinese chestnut trees, some jujube trees (they look strange but they taste good), and a stand of half a dozen olive trees that they bought from this place in Ocala (that day I do remember 'cause Daddy thought the trees were awful expensive). There are three different grape arbors but I saw a whip snake slithering around one of the arbors so I haven't been back. The whip snake has a black head and a long skinny brown body that makes it easy to identify if you've ever seen one … but where there are whip snakes you might find coral snakes or pygmy rattlers. Ew, ew, ew. I'll give those arbors a pass until I find some knee boots and heavy gloves.

There is a stand of trees I can't find. Momma said she planted Satsuma oranges, loquats, and kumquats but I don't know where. She wrote in her notes they are all together in the same place because they were more cold sensitive and Ben (that's my dad) … then there is a smudge … and I can't tell what she wrote. The yucca trees, or bushes, or things, or whatever they are, are going crazy everywhere Momma planted them. The roots on the yucca are edible. They really aren't bad but the plants are killers; they don't call them Spanish Bayonets for nothing. The prickly pears have gotten out of hand in a couple of places too. You just think about walking by and they jump out and attack you.

Some of the other stuff on Momma's list are blackberries, huckleberries, goji berry (must have been one of Momma's weird experiments), josta berries, lingon berries, yellow raspberries, red raspberries, black raspberries, wineberries, teaberries (aka wintergreen), bamboo (who knew you could eat bamboo?!), almonds, chinquapin (I have no idea what this is), black walnuts, English walnuts, bush cherries, sour cherries, and elderberries. Where all this stuff is I don't know and I don't even know when it is supposed to ripen. I have a feeling I'm going to have to just wait until the berries show up and then guess or match the leaves and stuff up to pictures in Momma's books. I can tell you though just as soon as I find where they are I'm going to mark it on the map of the acreage that I'm making. Momma's notes are driving me crazy. She knew lots and lots of stuff about trees and canning and stuff like that but it was all in her head. I like need a Rosetta stone to figure out her directions.

I walked all over Sparkleberry Ranch that day. Probably walked all over it a couple of times since I had to keep criss crossing to try and orient myself to Momma's drawings. While I was out I saw a few animals and saw "signs" of more. Stepped in a few "signs" too which was nasty. There was a turtle, squirrels, lot of birds, a turkey, quail, and a couple of rabbits. In the sand I saw tracks for lizards, dogs (or coyotes), and snakes. I saw a cat but it wouldn't come out of the bushes and it was too hot for me to make it run around while I chased it. I heard a woodpecker, a couple of cows from far off, and I think I heard a horse but the cows were mooing at the same time so it was hard for me to tell.

So this is my Promised Land. Hope I can be more like Joshua and less like those other guys that were 'fraidy cats.

What I haven't heard is people, music, cars, or anything that sounds like a machine. All the trees kind of dampen sound but I've been standing right by the fence looking at the houses and barns that are on three of the four 80 acre sections that surround Sparkleberry Ranch and nothing; no human sounds at all. Tomorrow I think I can convince myself that I need to get closer to at least one of those houses to see what is going on. What do I have to lose? Don't answer that.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I spend more time trying to figure out what I'm going to do than I spend actually doing it. Take yesterday for example. I woke up, fixed some "scrambled eggs" using this powder from Provident Pantry, and then spent a while deciding whether I was actually going to eat them or not. They were pretty gross but I settled on not wasting food; I don't think I cooked them right or something. Then I wasted time wondering whether I should dirty an extra dish or not. I wound up just eating them right out of the pan. Those were the little things. And right when I think I make the right choice I find out I forgot something important so I wind up having to figure something else out.

After breakfast I wasted time trying to figure out what to do next. I looked at my list and the two things I needed to do most was gather wood so I could have a cooking fire and make myself go check out at least one of the three houses on the other properties. I picked to gather wood and then had to decide did I want big wood or little wood. I decided on the little wood like from tree trash because I don't need a big fire, I just need something I can heat water on or do some minor cooking on. I picked up wood for a while until I got hot and hungry again.

I brought in some of the wood and started a fire in the fireplace easy enough but the house started smelling and getting smoky. I finally remembered there was a leaver you have to pull before you light the fire; it opens up something in the fireplace so the smoke can get out through the chimney. That helped but I had to open a couple of shutters and windows to get the house aired out. Plus, having a fire in the fireplace made the house hot and so did opening the windows and letting all the cool air out. As soon as all the smoke was gone I shut the windows and closed the shutters and locked them back tight. I cleaned out the leftover ashes out of the fireplace and dumped them in the coal bucket outside. By then I was really hungry so I ate my last can of ravioli instead.

Then I went back outside to gather some more wood while I figured out a solution to my problems. From now on, unless it is raining or something, I am going to build the fire outside in the BBQ grill. I'll just need to be real careful and not build a smoky fire.

After I stopped wood gathering I realized that I still hadn't gone over to any of the houses to check them out. I knew I couldn't be a chicken. I had considered waiting until it was dark but since my headlamp was out of batteries and the mag flashlight has been iffy ever since it got dunked I figured that it wouldn't be a good thing to try stumbling around in the night. Besides I reasoned, I have to start being brave about stuff sooner or later. Oh, I can say I was brave for biking all the way from Tampa to Sparkleberry Ranch but I don't think that was really being brave so much as it was being desperate. I believe God looked after me to get me here but now that I am here I'm having a hard time figuring out how much I'm supposed to start looking after myself.

I knew I needed to get going before it got any later in the day but I wasn't planning on going without some kind of protection in case there were bad guys over there. I'd already give my guardian angel a work out. I took a knife out of the kitchen. I thought about taking the baseball bat that was in one of the bedroom closets but I figured if I had to run a knife would be easier to run with than a bat, although if I fell the bat would be better than the knife.

See, that's part of what I mean about taking so long to think about doing something. I'm constantly debating whether do so something one way or to do it another … or to do it at all. I won lots of rounds on the debate team in highschool but this isn't school, this is real life.. I need to be able to make decisions faster but I also need to be discerning. I don't have anyone to tell me what to do anymore. Gag, that sounds like something Aunt Wilma would say.

I finally decided to check the house out to the northeast of our forty. It is the one closest to my fence line and it is also the closest to US90. I also thought that if I go to the house I might to be able to see what has been going on close to the highway.

So I walked boldly to my fence, climbed over it, stiffened my spine and walked a few feet at which point I promptly lost my nerve and started cowering in the tall grass like a wuss. I had scared a bunch of quail and they jumped up in front of me. I felt pretty silly after I figured out what it was. Since I was already hiding in the tall grass I decided that it might be simpler if I continued to use it for cover and slowly edged up to the house the long way around.

When I got to the house I eased around to the front porch and decided to knock on the door. If someone was home it would at least show that I was trying to be polite and not a common criminal. Wasn't hard to guess though that knocking was a silly idea; the storm door was broken and the glass crunched under my feet and the main door had been kicked in. The door was still on its hinges but there was a chunk of wood missing where the doorknob should have been. I used the toe of my shoe to push the door open and it made that sound effect noise that haunted houses use. The smell coming out of that place was pretty bad; smelled like a boy cat had gotten loose in there and marked his territory times a million. Even though the smell made my eyes water I went inside.

The house wasn't very big so the kitchen was easy to find. Some of the cabinet doors were standing open and some weren't but either way there wasn't anything edible in them. There was a rank smell and it was coming from a refrigerator that had been left open. The frig had a couple of opened condiments in it but that was it.

I was totally disappointed. All those books and movies I used to read and watch always made it seem like all you had to do was find a few abandoned houses and you'd be set. The past two days has proven that is so not true. If my parents hadn't been into the stuff they were into then I would really be up the creek without a paddle, canoe, or even a swimming suit. I figure I have about four months before I'm back to square one so between now and then I better come up with a plan.

The smell didn't get any better when I went to see what was in the bedrooms and the bathroom. The beds were all messy and didn't have any sheets on them and the mattresses were stained really bad. I put my hand over my nose and mouth 'cause the smell was so strong. It was different from the smell in the front of the house but just as bad. There was no way anyone was living in this house which made me feel better about going through stuff. There was an adult bedroom, a boy bedroom, and a girl bedroom. The boy and girl bedrooms looked like they belonged to someone my age, especially the girl's room. I could tell from the kind of clothes she had in her closet and all the makeup and jewelry that was on the dresser. There was also a highschool yearbook from last school year sitting on top of a stereo. There was a cheerleading uniform tossed over a desk chair … the kind you wear when the weather is cold so I guess whatever happened must have happened at least two months ago, maybe longer.

I needed clothes. I was embarrassed about pawing through this girl's things but I needed clothes. It was a lost cause; I'm built like Momma and there is no way any of that girl's under things were going to fit me unless I wanted to stop breathing. None of the clothes fit but I did find a couple of pairs of shoes did and an unopened package of socks. She had other pretty things but taking them would have been too much like stealing. I didn't need them so I made myself walk away. At least until I saw her school books stacked on the floor by the desk. I figured that was one thing that I wanted that I wouldn't get in too much trouble for taking.

For clothes I had better luck in the boy's room and in what must have been the mom's room. Didn't look like there was a Dad living in the house. The boy was probably in middle school or maybe a freshman in highschool; some freshman boys can be small. I grabbed some flannel shirts off hangers, a jean jacket, a hunter's jacket (the cloth material the jacket was made out of had deer and leaves all over it), and a pair of hunter's overalls. It is getting too hot for most of that stuff but I will be able to use it when it cools off later in the year. I think I'm learning to think ahead. I looked under his bed but that was a mistake. It was really gross under there and I'm not sure it was just from stuff leaking all the way through the mattress. Middle school boys can be so nasty.

In the mom's room I got some of those smocks and pants people wear when they work in a doctor's office. They had some really goofy designs … there were fish, teddy bears, dancing toothbrushes, and some other cutesy things. I figured she must have worked in a dental office 'cause no one wears shirts like that unless they have to. Nothing else would fit; it was either too big or too small in places that it was important that things fit right.

In the laundry room I lucked out and found a pair of work boots. They must have belonged to the boy. The boots kind of fit but kind of don't either. My favorite phrase has become "beggars can't be choosers." The boots are better than having none at all so I need to be appreciative. That doesn't mean I can't keep looking though.

It was at that point that I realized I didn't have anything to carry what I salvaged back home. It was stupid going over there expecting to find something and not taking a bag or the backpack to put it in. After a short but panicked search I found this thing hanging on the wall in the kitchen that was full of plastic grocery bags. I uncrumpled them and put what I had found in the bags then sat the bags on the back porch.

I decided that before I left I really, really needed to look over the whole house to make sure I got everything I could use. There was a bucket under the kitchen sink and some partially used cleaning chemicals. There were some scrub brushes, a mop, a couple of brooms, and a dust pan. In the bathroom there was a used bar of soap, some of those little decorative soaps shaped like seashells, some bath beads and bath salts, a plastic shower curtain, and some towels and wash rags. In the utility room there was an opened bottle of laundry detergent, another bucket, a great big jug of fabric freshener, an opened box of Borax, and an opened box of washing soda.

There were a lot of DVDs I hadn't ever seen but since I didn't have any way to watch the DVDs I skipped over to the books. Mostly there were just those bodice rippers that Aunt Wilma used to like to read when she didn't think anyone was paying attention. I did take the phone books that were sitting by the phone. I hope it doesn't come to that but some paper will be better than none. Ew.

I had more than enough to take back home. First I took everything I had stacked on the porch and put it over the fence. Then I climbed over the fence and started carrying the stuff the rest of the way back to the house. After the first load I took the wheelbarrow back with me but it still took several loads to get it all home. I put wagon on my list, and I don't mean a little red one like my brother used to have. I'd like to find one of those big ones like the tree nurseries use.

It wasn't until I was home and thinking about going inside that I realized how much I smelled. And the stuff I had brought from that house smelled too. I got some empty hangers from the closet inside – another thing on my list to keep an eye out for since they are so useful – strung a clothesline inside the barn and then hung up all the stuff on the hangers. Another item I added to my "grocery list" that day was clothes pins. Who knew that there were so many little things that you used every day and never thought about it? Then I sprayed everything with that fabric freshener. I checked the stuff today and it still stinks but not quite so bad.

Then I went inside and took a bath. It would have been nice to have a shower; maybe I can figure a way to rig one up. It would definitely be easier to wash my hair with a shower. I just about froze. The other thing I'm going to have to do is figure out some way to warm the water up but I don't have all day to sit around heating water over a fire, not to mention all the wood that would take. That's like a problem solving project in physics – transferring power without adding work. I think if I find a black container, put water in it, then sit it in the sun I should have warm water whenever I need it. It may not be really hot but it sure as shooting has got to be warmer than the water is when it comes out of the pump.

I slept good that night because I finally had a good meal. I mean who can mess up rice and beans right? The beans were a little bland, I was afraid of experimenting with the seasonings in the kitchen cabinets, but they filled me up and that was a feeling I barely recognized.

Before I went to sleep I decided that it would be better if I made a yet another kind of list. This list would be for all the things I would need to do the next day this way I would know what I needed to do instead of jumping around and wasting time trying to figure it out. That night I wrote down checking out the other two houses, but I also wrote down "bring back pack and bags" and take "take wheelbarrow to fence line." I also planned out my menu; breakfast would be oatmeal to hold me a long time in case I had to wait until dinner to eat again.

Today has run smoother so I think I'm going to keep doing the list thing. I got up and took care of the breakfast chores and personal chores that a girl needs to get started in the morning. Then I grabbed the backpack, stuffed the plastic bags in it, left the house and locked the house down. I grabbed the wheelbarrow from behind the barn and took off for the house that was due SW of my forty.

It was the same thing as the first one; no one home, door busted in, all the food gone, and no way to tell what had happened or how long ago. That house was a little cleaner than the one yesterday but probably because there were no kid bedrooms. I looked through the inside of the house taking the few things that I thought would be useful. The one thing I found at this house was books, real books like Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells and just bunches of others. The two spare bedrooms in the three bedroom house were nothing but books. This house didn't smell but the books were musty and dusty. It took me forever to cart over the books to the wheelbarrow and I could only put them in the backpack because the plastic bags just split when I tried to use them.

The lady clothes in the house fit me but none of them were practical and weren't worth the effort to haul them home. I did find a long blue jean skirt and one blue jean jumper but I'll have to keep them for inside clothes and I don't know how I would really be able to do chores in them outside without my legs getting all ripped up by saw briers and blackberries. The rest of it was the same as the other house; opened bottles and boxes of cleaners, linens, scrub brushes, and that sort of thing. I did find some of those expensive smelly candles but no matches.

The couple who lived in that house – there were pictures of them together in the house but no pictures of kids – looked nice and normal if a little old-fashioned. They looked older than my parents did but the house itself hadn't been here long; it was one of those subdivision looking houses and didn't fit in with the land around it at all. It would have looked much more at home in Tampa. Except for the busted in door and the missing food it was like they had just left the house for a vacation or something. I tried to leave the house as neat as I had found it but I did leave sand on the floor in a couple of places.

I ate lunch between salvaging the two houses; a spoonful of peanut butter and a bunch to drink. It was hot and sweaty work carting all that stuff back to the house. The second house was the messiest one but the one that I salvaged the most stuff from. It was messy but didn't stink.

Just like the other two houses all the food was gone but in this house no one had taken the paper products or the cleaning supplies. That was two wheelbarrow trips right there. I also found these really great area rugs that I rolled up (after I had dumped all the junk off of them) and brought them home. I plan on putting those in the dormer room as soon as I figure out how to clean them. I grabbed all the towels, washrags, and kitchen towels and rags too.

This house was a real old farm house like in those historical places Momma and Daddy liked us to visit and it had all these nooks and crannies and I got turned around a couple of times. One time I got turned around I found this room that I think used to be a pantry 'cause it had all these shelves in there and they were full of canning jars; empty canning jars but I thought they will still be useful. Every jar had a ring and I found a basket with little boxes of sealing lids too. I took Home Ec as one of my freshman electives and I remember being the only one in class except the teacher that knew what all the canning equipment was for when we did a unit on food preservation. I've never done it by myself but Momma's books with pictures and directions are at the house and the equipment should be in the summer kitchen.

Another time I got turned around I wound up in a storage space underneath one of the stairs. There was all sorts of outdoor stuff in there. All the coats and hunting pants were too big for me … way too big … but there was other stuff in there for hunting and fishing. I don't know what half of the stuff is for but it might eventually be useful. That was it for the inside of the house.

In the kitchen was this built in china hutch and it was full of speckleware dishes, bowls and stuff like that. In the bottom of the cabinet behind some cabinet doors were a lot of big bowls, a big soup tureen, and some big platters. I grabbed those but nearly had a nervous breakdown when that cat I saw yesterday darted out in front of me and I nearly dumped some of the dishes on the ground. It's a pretty kitty with these weird blue eyes but it can't make up its mind if it wants to be friends or not. I used tablecloths I found in the china cabinet draws to wrap the dishes up in so they wouldn't clank while I was pushing them in the wheelbarrow but it helped to keep them from breaking too I guess.

I also decided to take all the wooden spoons, the rolling pin, biscuit cutter, gravy ladles and some of the other kitchen junk. I know I should have most of that stuff somewhere, either in the summer kitchen or packed in boxes in the bonus rooms, but I figured spares couldn't hurt. That was all I took from the house, but that was plenty. From there I moved to the barn and shed.

The barn was big enough for animals to live in and it still smelled but there weren't any animals even though there were bales of hay. Whoever took the food must have taken the animals too or maybe someone took the animals. I sure hadn't seen any cows living at any of the places like they used to. The barn had other stuff in it though like hoes, saws, a big sickle like for old-fashioned hay cutting, a big shovel (I think for manure), and a couple of pitchforks.

There was also this thing called a beaver wheel cultivator; the only reason I know what it is called is because my Granddaddy used to use one in Memaw's kitchen garden. It kind of looks like a wheelbarrow only without the bucket part attached. The wheel is also bigger and it doesn't have any rubber on it; it looks like an all-metal wagon wheel. The attachments go right behind the wheel and you stick them in the ground and push like you do a wheelbarrow. Even I could do it when I was seven and eight years old. I should have all the tools I need if I can ever find some seeds.

There is another house way off on the other side of the farmhouse and as soon as I do a few more things around my house I'll go check that one out. I piled everything into the barn, sprayed all the clothes with more freshener and then decided to fix myself another plate of beans and rice. The beans aren't making my stomach hurt as much anymore which is great because there sure are a lot of beans to use. Tomorrow I'm getting started on my inventory and looking in the boxes up in the bonus room. I'm kinda excited about doing that and kinda dreading it as well. It will be the first time I get to see my parents' personal stuff since the wreck … all their stuff from Tampa was just shoved into boxes and brought to the property and stuck upstairs; then the lawyer hired someone to pack away all the personal stuff in the Sparkleberry Ranch house when Aunt Wilma talked about having a big garage sale to raise money for my care and housing. Every box was sealed and initialed and the lawyer made an inventory of each box to make sure stuff didn't just disappear. But because of the tractor I'm not too sure that everything is up there. There are so many boxes I'm not sure I'd notice if something was missing anyway.

Oh and before I forget, I think today is April 30th. I'm pretty sure it is. I counted up all of the days since I left the warehouse and that is what I come up with.

My list of things to do tomorrow:

Breakfast – granola cereal with powdered milk

Lunch – peanut butter and jam sandwich shake (I used to gross Aunt Wilma out drinking this)

Dinner – bean burger and mashed potatoes

Gather wood (it goes really fast)

Start inventory

Wash out and hang to dry my under things and socks

Find Momma's gardening notes on when the fruit is supposed to get ripe

Make a calendar with big squares I can write in

Look at Daddy's books for ideas on what I need to do next

If I can do the main things on my list I need to go back to the three houses and see if they have any office supplies like paper and junk. I'm running out of paper and this pen is running out of …..


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

May 2nd - Ink; this pen is running out of ink, at least that's what I meant to write at the end of my last entry. Who would have thought that it would be so hard to find something to write with? Every pen in the house was dead and there weren't any pencils. That messed up my morning because instead of doing things in the order that I wanted to do them I had to stop and go on safari for what I needed.

I woke up to the cat that had been hanging around singing right outside the bedroom window. It had gotten stuffy in the house last night so I opened a window but left the accordion shutters locked shut. It was the only thing I could think of; the more I go in and out the more the house struggles to stay cool even if it is well insulated. The cat must have been somebody's pet. I guess it finally decided to trust me. Good thing too, she had this great big ol' honking tick on her nose despite the flea collar she was wearing. And it is a her kitty and not a him kitty; silly thing rolled over on her back after I took the tick off and made sure it didn't have fleas before I hung around it too much. And she followed me around all day. The grossest thing though was she brought me a lizard … an extremely mangled lizard … to share. It took a while to convince her that I wasn't hungry. She finally ate it herself. Don't think I want any kitty kisses from her. Yuck! But at least I know I won't have to worry about cat food if she decides to stay for a while.

After I took care of the kitty I ate breakfast and that granola stuff is really good. The powdered milk I poured over it would have been better if I had used colder water to make it so next time I'll pump water straight from the well first. I also put some of the dried beans to soak in a bunch of water for my dinner that night. I would have forgotten to do that if I hadn't had it on my list. That's when I started looking for a pen or pencil not even realizing how hard that was going to be. After an hour I gave up; I was soooo mad. I figured I could put off gathering the wood but I really needed to start the inventory; of course I couldn't because I didn't have a writing utensil.

I knew my best bet was to go back to the very first house and look in the girl's room in her school stuff. I had intended on doing that anyway just not so soon. At least I was smart enough to remember to bring the back pack this time. The cat decided to follow me over to the house but wouldn't come in; smart cat, it didn't smell any better the second time around.

Sure enough there were a bunch of pens and pencils on her desk, on the desk in the boy's room and also in a cup by the telephone in the kitchen. In the boy's room there were also some big markers and a couple of pieces of poster board; must have been for some school project. Since I was there I grabbed the wooden spoons and stuff like that instead of coming back for them on a third trip.

Finally I was heading back to the house to start the inventory. Major problem; there was a big dog in the yard. As soon as I opened the door the cat sprinted inside and used me as a tree to climb up. I still have the marks on my scalp and neck where she grabbed on. I just barely got the door shut before the dog charged. His big old fat head slammed right into the door and the nasty thing nearly knocked himself out. He growled, barked, and scratched at the different doors and windows like he was Cujo or something. It was freaky. I was stuck in there an hour waiting for the dog to go away; it finally did when some birds took off in the tall grass and it went bounding after them, never returning.

It took forever for Fraidy – that's what I decided to call her – to calm down. I thought she was going to have a heart attack; her poor little heart was beating so hard. She's not a very big kitty, probably isn't very old or she's a runt or something, and she wouldn't have even been a mouthful for that dog. It was kind of a Rottweiler looking thing only it didn't have a stubby tail and its body type was a little off; maybe a mixed breed.

Since I was stuck in there it gave me time to look around the house more. I guess that was a good thing 'cause I found some more useful stuff but it still felt weird pawing through other people's belongings. I cleaned out the medicine cabinet but I only took the stuff I knew about. If it looked like a prescription I didn't touch it. I found a wind up clock in the boy's night stand and an old fashioned pocket watch that works on his dresser top. Now if I could only figure out what time it is. The other thing that the extra time gave me was the chance to realize that you don't always get the chance to get rid of the embarrassing stuff you have hidden. There was some stuff in the kids' rooms that I'm sure their mom would not have approved of and for a fact that was some stuff in the mom's room that was embarrassing to me. Right then and there I made myself a promise that I would try to be careful about what I had in my house. Who wants people to find that kind of stuff? I think I'd die of embarrassment if I wasn't already dead. And who wants to be remembered that way?

Once I got home I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich shake. It's really easy; you take milk, mix in a little peanut butter and a little bit of jelly and then mix it together like a smoothie. It tastes a lot better than it sounds and since it was a healthy snack (and cheap) Aunt Wilma didn't complain too much thought it did gross her out.

After my lunch I got started on the inventory. The big cans of food in the dormer room were easy. As I brought stuff downstairs to put into the cabinets in the summer kitchen I would write it down. It feels like there is a whole lot of food and I'm sure there is; but I'm also sure that it won't last as long as would like it to; no grocery store to run to when I use it all up and no money to buy anything if there were stores selling. I thought about leaving the big cans up there but I need the floor space; I'm going to make a place for me to hide for just-in-case. The book called _Diary of Anne Frank_ gave me the idea only I sure as heck don't want my story to end the way hers did. The few bits of food that don't need water and cooking are going to be my emergency snack stash for up there and I'll add to it if I can.

It was messier to inventory all of the stuff in the barn which meant I got stuck taking another cold bath (gotta find a way to heat water up or keep hot water on hand. I brought in everything but the clothes and put it away; that took a lot of time. The clothes are still out there. I figured out a way to wash everything but I'm only going to be able to do a few pieces at a time.

That night I fixed the bean burgers and they were really easy. I took my soaked white beans and cooked them for an hour and a half in a Dutch oven for about an hour and a half. That took a lot of my wood but I planned on gathering more wood the next day. I also put some of the dried chopped onions in some water to rehydrate. While the beans were cooking I took a hip bath out on the lanai. I stank so much I was afraid of being in the house too much. I was also scared someone would come by and catch me in my all together so I moved a screen outside and set a big, galvanized tub out there. I could only kneel in the tub but I didn't really want to sit in that cold water anyway. Fraidy thought I was nuts. I was so cold by the time I finished washing my hair that I thought I was nuts.

I put my hair up in a towel and then finished fixing the burgers and making instant mashed potatoes. The instant mashed potatoes were easy; just following the directions by adding boiling water. The burgers took a little more work but are worth it. Even though Aunt Wilma and I didn't always get along it wasn't always her fault and this was one of the recipes she would teach us to cook.

First you take some stuff mix and add in some egg (I used breadcrumbs from the cabinets here and added powdered eggs that I added water to) and let them sit. Then you heated a little oil in a skillet and sauté your onions only I didn't have oil so I had to dry fry them in a little non-stick spray. Then you take your cooked and drained beans and using a fork mash them up until they are all kinda like baby food consistency. Add your onions to the beans and mixed it up. Then add you stuffing/egg junk to the bean/onion junk and stir it up until it's is sort of like play dough. Make patties out of the bean play dough and fry them in your skillet with non stick spray, oil, or butter until they are browned on both sides. I was really hungry so I made two patties. I used my ketchup packets to add a little more flavor to my burgers but sometimes we used to make gravy for the potatoes and that worked too.

It was easy to get to sleep that night but Fraidy woke me up again the next morning. I'm going to have to figure out what that cat wants. She won't come inside but that might be a good thing but she wants me outside all the time and that doesn't work either. I'm a people not an animal that lives outside all the time.

Today my list of things to do went better. First thing after breakfast (I fixed a bowl of grits and put in a little powdered cheese) I had to do was gather wood. It's not hard; the turkey oaks drop tree trash year round and since no one had been through to bush hog all I had to do was bend over and pick it up. Eventually I got smart and took the wheelbarrow with me. I stopped after four big loads of wood and I piled them on a gray plastic tarp that I found in the barn. There was a blue one in there too but it stood out too much and you could see if from a long way off.

Next I took off to that fourth house I spotted. If I thought the first and third house had been a mess this one could have been on those TV shows that Uncle Charlie used to watch called _Clean House_ and _Hoarders_ where people were so messy they needed professional help to get things organized and redecorated. I think who ever lived there must have been addicted to shopping. There were a lot of unopened UPS and Fed Ex boxes and a ton us stuff with that label that says "as seen on TV." It was kinda funny at first but after a while it got to be sad 'cause a lot of the stuff was just plain silly.

Some of it I figure I can make use of but some of it was kind of weird. Like there were all these Mr. Potato Heads dressed up like different professional football players; they were called Sports Spuds. There were boxes and boxes of junky kind of food like all these different flavored coffees and big containers of popcorn seasonings. There were three of these popgun things that shot marshmallows but there wasn't a kid's room in the house. There were "Sham Wows" that were this towels that are supposed to be 25 times more absorbent than a paper towel. There were aqua globes that you filled with water and stuck in house plants in case you forgot to water them. There was a ton of costume jewelry that never looked like it had been worn. There were clothes of all sizes in every room of the house. There were lots of fancy picture frames but none of them had pictures of real people in them – they were the pictures that came with the frames – but they were set around the house like they were family members. There were four sets of fireplace accessories but not a fireplace in the house. One room that was supposed to be a bedroom was full of nothing but Christmas decorations, most of them never even taken out of the packaging. There were lots of DVDs and CDs that were still in the plastic but I didn't see a DVD player or stereo though it could have been buried some place.

Another room was full of all of these collectible dolls; all those eyes staring at me creeped me out. Another room had a John Deere, Rooster, and Hunting theme to it. I think it was supposed to be a man's room but I don't think a guy would appreciate a frilly and ruffled bright green and yellow bedspread even if it did have a tractor on it. Another room had lots of musical instruments and stuff in there. Then I went into the kitchen.

The kitchen was so fussy and had so many gadgets and gizmos in there you couldn't really see the counter top and hardly any of them had ever been used by the looks of them. There were a ton of plastic containers. It took me a few minutes to realize that no one had ever taken the food out of this house, not that there was much to take. Judging by the dried toxic waste that had oozed out of the big freezer out in the garage the home's owner must have mostly eaten TV dinners and junk like that. But the cabinets did have some canned goods like soups and single size cans of veggies. There was a lot of that junk that people take to work for lunch shoved into the closet that served as a pantry. But oh my word! There was enough junk food to satisfy my highschool football team. There were also a bunch of cases of canned pop. I mean I got zits just looking at it all. And Aunt Wilma would have had a coronary; to her sugar was a cuss word.

I started hauling over stuff right away. The problem is the house is so much further away than any of the others that it is taking forever to haul stuff home. And the ground I'm walking across isn't exactly a sidewalk. I think I'm almost half way done with that house but I sure am tired tonight. I brought back a box of Zebra Cakes and a couple of cans of soda with the first load so I could have dessert after dinner. Now I wish I hadn't because I can't get to sleep. I'm writing by the wind up flashlight I found in that house with the hunting gear. The stupid thing has an alarm on it too and I nearly stopped breathing when I accidentally turned it on and then had a hard time figuring out how to turn it off. Fraidy fell off the window ledge she was sleeping on which was the only thing funny about the whole incident.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and finish up taking the stuff from that house – most of the food is going in my hideaway in the dormer room. I have the stuff I've already inventoried in one of the barn bays and this new stuff is in another barn bay. I'll inventory for a little while during my break between chores, and then I'm going to work on finishing up how I'm going to wash clothes.

But I'm going to have to be careful. While I was fixing dinner – I splurged and let myself eat one of the cans of chicken and stars soup along with nearly a whole sleeve of crackers – I heard what I think is gun fire. There was a bunch of pops but not like the machine gun sounds you hear in the movies. The pops were close together but didn't sound all the same, maybe like there was more than one going off at the same time. I've tried to count the pops in my head and all I can say for sure is that there was more than a dozen but less than two dozen. Maybe someone was hunting but somehow I just don't think so.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

May 3rd - That's so it. I'm done doing the salvaging thing. This is so nuts and it's too hard. I think I'll just figure stuff out on my own. I finished getting stuff out of the fourth house but it was depressing doing that. It makes me feel so bad. And seeing how alone that last lady was made me really take notice of how alone I am. I am NOT being a wimp. I can do the work, it's not that. But I don't know if all of that is worth it. I'm not finding the kind of food I need, mostly just junk although the soups were good. And trying to transport things uses up time and energy that I'm beginning to think I'd be better off spending on other things.

One of the things I remember Daddy always telling me when I complained of something being "too hard" was that I need to "work smarter, not harder." When I was little he would have to explain what he meant to me, now I have to figure that out on my own. The further away from Sparkleberry Ranch I have to go the more work there is going to be to transport anything I find back. If I don't find anything – especially if I don't find food – then that work will be wasted. I think I would be better off spending that time and that work on going over Momma's notes about when things are supposed to ripen around here and looking through Daddy's books to find out how to make things that I need.

All of this would be easier if there was someone else here besides me. They wouldn't have to be my friend if they didn't want to, just someone to share the work with. I didn't have a lot of friends in school but I had some; I even made some friends when we were all stuffed together in the warehouse even though some of them died and the rest changed and some even turned on me. I can live with that if it happens, I don't like it but I can live with it. Part of me has always felt alone since the wreck but there were still people around. Doctors, nurses, hospital staff; counselors, therapists; Aunt Wilma, Uncle Charlie and the parade of other foster kids. Teachers, coaches, kids in the hallways at school. There were people walking, driving, playing, fighting … there were warm bodies taking up space all over the place. But here? Where did everybody go?!

It's like I stepped into an episode of the _Twilight Zone_ or maybe that old Vincent Price movie _The Last Man on Earth_ (only without the vampires).

Fraidy is cool but she's just a cat. She'll listen to me when she is in the mood but she doesn't talk back. I pray and stuff like you are supposed to but I'm still lonely; maybe I'm not doing it right. Even Adam had Eve and Noah had his family during times there weren't too many people on Earth; you'd figure there has to be someone around here someplace that is as lonely as me. And this loneliness I feel is a different kind of lonely from what I felt after the wreck. Before, even when I drove people off or they didn't want to hang around because my emotions were too big I could still turn on the radio, tv, or even pick up the phone and talk to whatever therapist I had that week if I wanted to (or needed to) but there is nothing here, no body to turn to, no voices but my own. Gah! That makes me sound like a drama queen or some kind of Goth Girl; I don't know how to say it any better.

It has been since Williston since I talked to anyone and had them talk back. I saw the best of people and the worst. Here … it is like, I don't know what, but it isn't like I imagined it would be. I never thought I needed people, not really. I always said I wasn't a "people person." Sometimes being around people was OK but I never thought about needing them. I've tried really hard not to need people since my family died; it didn't seem loyal somehow. But now … now I'm feeling like that again. Like I need someone or I'm going to turn into that crazy lady with the house full of junk that never gets used. I don't want to be that person.

I spent most of today hauling everything that might be useful back to my place. It is all sitting in the barn waiting to be inventoried but just the thought of all that is depressing. It's an awful mess in the barn which is making me itch to do something about it but I have to clean everything before I bring it into the house and put it away. I've always had a lot of chores and for my work experience credits at school I worked at the "Good Eats" restaurant but I've never worked this hard in my entire life; as soon as I wake up to when I go to sleep. I don't exactly see that changing anytime soon either. Gather wood, pump water, cook, clean, haul stuff back home, inventorying, take care of Fraidy, yada, yada, yada. And I need to start reading more of Momma's notes and looking at some of Daddy's books but I don't have the time for it.

Time is another reason I don't want to look through any more houses. I think anything else would be too far away and I could only carry so much and have to walk a long time. Maybe when I am more settled I can take my bike and ride places but the bike doesn't go as fast on dirt roads as it does on black top. There were two houses on the other side of the fourth house. I walked over to them both but it was a waste of time. They were even more picked over than the four houses that I've already looked through. Both of them were a waste of time,

And while I was out walking between those houses I saw that mean dog again or it was one that looked just like it. It barked at me but didn't charge me. I thought I was going to have to climb a tree there for a second but it stayed a long way off. I'm carrying a baseball bat now whenever I leave the house. I don't want that dog chewing on me. I've been dog bit before and it hurts! The dog that bit me was only playing, can't imagine how much it would hurt if a dog bit me when it wasn't just playing. That's another reason why I don't want to go so far from home much anymore.

One of the things I'm going to try and see if it helps me with my work load is to go to sleep when it gets dark and wake up with it gets to be day time. The waking up part isn't hard; Fraidy is a pretty good alarm clock even if she doesn't have a snooze button. The going to bed though is going to be harder. I'm used to staying up as late as I want, even on school nights, so long as I was studying and not disturbing whoever my roommate was. It is going to be hard making myself go to bed early like I'm a little kid but I remember Momma saying that a schedule was important. A schedule also helps you get your work done by dividing it up into manageable chunks so that you don't get overwhelmed or start running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Less frustration sounds good to me.

From here on out – well, at least for a little while – I'm going to focus on making my place better. There may not be anyone to help me but I can help myself by making a plan and getting organized. I started by making a list of all the things that I think I want or need to do and trying to put them in some kind of order of importance. There are some things I have to do every day but they shouldn't take up all my time. Then there are things I should be doing; I'll spread some of those things throughout the day. Lastly are things that I want to do but they aren't needs; I'll try and do one of those or part of one of those every day.

Tonight I was too tired to do much more than look at Momma's notes. It is really cool, she has this calendar and she wrote in there the times when she first started seeing fruit get ripe and when she started to see enough fruit get ripe to really call it harvest time. And on each page of the calendar is a list of gardening chores that needs to be done that particular month. In her gardening journal … the one that she used to keep for our veggie garden and flowers at our regular house … she used to go on and on about the _Farmer's Almanac_. I wonder if one was published for this year and where I could find one. I bet if I could get over to the library they would have one there but I can't remember exactly where the library is around here, only that it was a ways by car.

While I was looking at Momma's notes I saw that I only have about two weeks before the blueberries should be ripe. It's not like all of the blueberries get ripe on the same day; I'll have to pick blueberries every day and what I don't eat fresh I need to figure out how to preserve them. I've set aside two hours tomorrow to look at Momma's books for ways to do that. I would have started on that tonight but I wanted to get some of my other notes in order. I think if I take this on like a really big school project I'll be able to wrap my head around it better. Just instead of a grade I'll have a better life … hopefully.

My big chore tomorrow is that I'm going to wash clothes. If anyone sees me doing this they are going to think I've gone crazy but since I'm going to try it first in the bathtub I don't have to worry about being embarrassed by an unexpected visitor.

First I'm going to put one of those extra shower curtains on the floor so that if I make a mess it will be easier to clean up. Next I'm going to get a load of like clothes together and I'm going to start with whites cause I need to wash my under things out. I'll put a couple of layers in the bottom of the bathtub. I'll pour bucket after bucket of water into the tub (with the drain closed) until the clothes are covered by at least a couple of inches of water. I'll put in a little soap and next will come the silly part. I'm going to stomp on the clothes like people used to squish grapes for making wine. Stomp, stomp, stomp. I thought about using a spoon or a stick but it is just easier to stomp them down with my feet. Then I'll let them soak for a bit and then stomp them a little more.

Then I'll open the drain and let the water out. And stomp on the clothes to get as much water out of them as I can. I'll close the drain and then pour rinse water over them and stomp them some more to get all of the suds out. Then I'll drain and stomp them again. Once as much water has drained out of them as I can get I'll pick up one piece at a time and wring it out by hand. From there I'll hang them out on the clothes line that Uncle Charlie strung up a couple of years ago for Aunt Wilma to use. If I make too big of a mess I'll have to move things outside but it sure would be easier on me if "the stomp" washer works.

Tomorrow I also need to make myself keep going on the inventory of stuff I have stacked in the barn so that I can wash it, bring it inside, and find a place to put it away. Once I get my inventory done I will see what I have and what I really need vs. what I really want. I hate to keep harping on need vs. want like I'm some old granny but since I don't have an old granny around to tell me these things I need to tell them to myself. Somehow it is even worse to lecture myself because there is no way to walk away when I'm talking to myself. Too weird.

I also found a way to clean the rugs. I was trying to sweep all the dirt and stuff off and it just wasn't working. Everyone time I turned the rug over to do the other side I would just turn it over into the dirt I had just swept off. I got mad and slammed the broom down on the rug and the dirt and dust puffed up and I could see it in a sun beam. That's when I remembered. To clean rugs when you don't have a vacuum you beat them. I threw the rugs over the clothes line and started hitting them with the broom. Dust and sand flew everywhere. The rugs are clean but my arms are sore and tired.

I carried the rugs upstairs and it already looks nicer up there. And I also took a couple of the mattresses off of the bunk beds in one of the bedrooms and put them up there. What a pain that was but it is worth it. With the mattresses moved to the dormer room I can dismantle one of the eight bunk beds and move the pieces out to the barn or shed. I can use the wood for something else later on down the road. I'll take two more mattresses up there tomorrow; I'll stack the mattresses two on bottom and two on top, add an egg crate I found at the lonely lady's house and then use kind size sheets to cover everything with. That will give me a nice big bed to roll around in up there if I want to. Storage cube will be the "night stands" and will hold my upstairs food stash.

The other thing I want to do is empty one box – just one box – of my family's stuff from the bonus rooms. There should be more of mom and dad's stuff in those boxes and I know the picture albums have to be in there too. I'll start with just one box at a time rather than trying to do it all at once. Besides, I have to find places for everything I unbox and I still haven't figured out where to put everything.

And I also promised myself that I would spend twenty or thirty minutes looking for those hidden things that I know are in the house. I can picture Daddy's face while he was telling me about them but I can't quite remember what he said. I hate what that coma did to me. Where ever that stuff is I hope there is not some secret key or code I'm supposed to remember to unlock the hiding place. That would be awful!

But right now I'm putting myself to bed. The sun is almost finished going down and I have to make sure that I have everything put away and locked down for the night before I have to use a flashlight to find my way.


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

May 5th – My vow to go to bed when it gets dark lasted only one night. Last night I didn't really have a good excuse for staying up passed dark, tonight I do.

Yesterday I kept to my plan until late afternoon and got a lot done. I got four loads of laundry stomped clean and hung out to dry and all but the coats and a blanket dried on the line completely. I brought the coats and the blanket in and hung them on the retractable clothes line that is in the summer kitchen. Now I know why Momma pushed Daddy to let her put one of those things in the house; they are dead useful. The floor in there is slate just like the tiles on the lanai and water doesn't hurt them. Daddy also put a drain in the floor just in case there was a flood from the plumbing so if there was a lot of water dripping from the clothes on the line it can just be pushed to the drain. When not in use there is a plate that is screwed down and you'd never know it was there because you can toss a rug over the top of it.

The morning started out really nice. I was relieved that I wouldn't be trekking back and forth to some house that stank, was messy, or freaked me out in some way. For breakfast I fixed myself some orange creamsickle milk … it's basically just Tang and powdered milk mixed together with some water … and ate some granola and dried strawberries mixed together … yummy.

Right after breakfast I started my first load of laundry. It looked as silly as I thought it would; I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. And doggone that water was cold on my bare feet and legs. But now I have clean clothes to wear so the silliness was worth it. My legs weren't nearly as sore as I expected them to be, probably because I worked all the kinks out of them on the bike ride from Tampa and by walking all over forty acres and beyond ever since.

While each laundry load was in a soak cycle I would grab things out of the barn, inventory them in my notebook, and find a place for them in the house. I made a good dent in that job yesterday but I could only do laundry, wash, and inventory for so long before I became tired and muzzy headed. I stopped and for lunch I had a cup o' soup. I would have saved stuff like that for my dormer room stash except that the Styrofoam cups make the soups get gross if they aren't used soon enough.

Guess I should talk about the trash I'm making. I'm not making much but it does pile up faster than you think. What I'm doing is what I remember my mom doing but without Aunt Wilma's kind of overboard modern hippie environmentalism take on it. I can kind of understand Aunt Wilma's point of view, they sure has heck pounded it into us at school. Momma still had it better I think. She said we get certain things in this life … blessings, gifts, things we work for, etc. … and it is up to us to be good stewards of that stuff; because one of these days if we aren't good stewards we'll find it all gone or taken away. But unlike the radical environmentalist who think we are supposed to do our part to take care of stuff because they belong to everyone, Momma believed we were supposed to take care of stuff because things are on loan to us from God … kinda like he's holding the mortgage on things and we're working for the day we get something even better in Heaven.

Anyway, Momma used to recycle just like Aunt Wilma did only Aunt Wilma, once she had put the papers, glass, and plastics in the tubs at the curb she didn't think about them anymore. Momma didn't recycle stuff by sending it away, she recycled stuff by keeping it and turning it into something else. She has about a dozen books on composting which is basically recycled stuff to make new dirt. I don't how many books there are on turning "trash to treasure." There are books on turning old clothes into new clothes or into other things. I found a really neat pattern last night that even I can do and that is take old blue jeans, cut them in squares and then sew them together to get this really neat looking blue jean quilt. There was another pattern for turning old jeans into long skirts; I saw those things for sale in the mall back before things got crazy but Aunt Wilma said they were way overpriced even when they were on clearance.

Momma had lots of ideas of what to do with what most people called trash, I remember she did but I can't remember exactly how she did it. I know it is in one of her notebooks around here somewhere. Until I find that notebook I'm dividing things up into the recycling cans out in the barn – cardboard, plastic, Styrofoam, glass, metal, etc. But the Styrofoam cup from my soup reminded me of a little "recycling" project one of the other foster kids taught us. If Uncle Charlie had known he'd have had a fit.

See this kid Max was a pyro-geek. He got into trouble because people thought he was a fire bug but he wasn't, not really. To Max fire was special, something to be studied and used like a tool. When he grew up he wanted to be a scientist that could control fire, make it do what he wanted it to. Yeah, he was a little crazy, but it was a cool kind of crazy. He taught the rest of us kids how to take Styrofoam and make homemade napalm. When you add a little gas to Styrofoam it melts. The gunk that is left will stick to anything. If you light that gunk on fire it makes a really hot fire that burns for a long time. I found a small gallon can of really, old nasty gas in the barn at property three. I brought it home just in case it might come in handy. I'm thinking that if my wood ever gets so wet that it won't light but I really need a fire for some reason then I can make that Styrofoam gunk and put a little dab on the wood and it will burn long enough to get some of the wood dry so that it will burn.

I figure if Styrofoam can be used for something this cool with so little work, Momma is bound to have some neat stuff that I can do with the rest of the trash I'm making.

After lunch I decided to take a break and go pick one box to open up of my parents' stuff. That's when the trouble started. It took me a while to realize that none of the house keys fit the heavy door at the bottom of the stairs that led to the bonus rooms. I have a feeling this was the lawyer's work rather than Uncle Charlie's. It took a while for me to figure out how to break into the door without doing major damage. For some reason the hinges on this door were on the outside. I popped the hinges with an awl and hammer. This wasn't a pre-hung door so with patience and a little bit of force I was able to get the door open. I need to change the doorknob but heck, that is something else that I learned from watching Uncle Charlie. It can be irritating but it isn't rocket science.

I went up the stairs and it was like stepping into Wonderland. You know what they say about potato chips? You can never do just one. Every box reminded me of things I hadn't even realized I had forgotten. I would bring down one, meaning to only open it but the first one was just full of kitchen stuff and it was easy to empty and put away. The second one had dishes in it … those old white and green Correll dishes that Momma had always been so proud of every time she found a new piece at a yard sale. I sat those by the dish drainer to wash so of course that wasn't really like putting a box away so I got a third and then a fourth and then a fifth, sixth, and seventh.

And then I started running across the stuff that was more personal – Daddy's military fatigues, Momma's sewing box, my brother's Matchbox cars. Before I knew it the sun was going down and the house was a mess. I was tempted to leave it like that but in the end I was too wide awake and too emotionally exhausted to go to sleep so I found the wind up lamp, hung it on the candle sconce attached to the wall and did what I could to make things neater. Even after I washed up and climbed in bed I lay awake for a long time, movies of better times running through my head.

The next morning I was fuzzy headed but Fraidy, who had actually decided to stay inside last night when it started to rain, needed out and was passed being dignified about it. Breakfast was oatmeal because I had to use a candle lantern to heat up a cup of water hot enough to work with the instant stuff. It was very misty and stayed that way off and on today, like the last of some unseasonable cold front had tried to take a Florida vacation and failed.

No way was I going to be doing much outside during the morning so I decided to continue with the boxes up in the bonus rooms. I eventually found Momma's jewelry box and my Dad's mom's jewelry box too. I found Daddy's Case knife collection wrapped up with table cloths that I remember my mother pulling out only for company or big family get togethers. I took the jewelry and knives right to the dormer room; both looked out of place but I didn't care. Even all of the clothes had been packed away neatly. I tried to see if I could smell Daddy or Momma but the clothes were too old and had been packed with packets of cedar balls.

At lunch time I knew I had to get out and walk around a bit. I kept feeling tears roll down my cheeks even though I couldn't remember starting to cry. I grabbed a green rain poncho, locked the door, and then went for a walk with the wheelbarrow to pick up wood, even though it would be wet.

I hadn't been to the CR49 since I first cruised in from my long bike trek. In fact, all of my walks had been away from CR49 and running parallel between CR49 and US90. I decided to walk up to see the blackberries, I didn't really think they would be ripe yet but I wanted to check on them to see if there were any berries making.

I was pushing the wheelbarrow down the Avenue of the Oaks where it meets up with Magnolia Drive when a bunch of deer came bounding over the fence and down the lane straight at me. I was wondering what in the bejeebers had scared them when I heard those popping sounds again but much, much closer.

I also heard motors. I only knew at that moment the sounds were the first motors I'd heard in a long time. It turns out the motors belonged to dirt bikes running around on the old ATV trails on one of the twenties that bordered our road.

It didn't take me long to find the good sense to dive into the bushes and grass at the dogleg in the road. I pushed the wheelbarrow ahead of me and then tipped it on its side so it didn't lay some much grass over. The sticks I had collected went every which way giving even more camouflage.

I listened to the motors for a while and right when I thought they were going to stay in the area they were so that I could escape home things really got crazy. First a guy comes kinds of running-stumbling out of the loblollies on the other side of the gully. He actually falls into the gully but he lands in a patch of thick blackberry canes and kind of just disappears. I didn't have time to wonder about that more than a second when two of the dumbest stumps in the forest make an appearance.

No one with any real sense goes mud boggin, big wheeling, or biking in an area they haven't already scouted out at a reasonable speed. One, you never know what might be around the next corner and two, you never know what you might run over. The gully straddles the property line right there so Daddy never ran the fence passed the tip of the gully; however, the people that owned that twenty did by giving up some of their property so that the fence was on their side of the gully. Their ATV track had a lot of clay in it so stayed fairly weed free all year, but the land around that piece of fence was always overgrown and unless you knew the fence was there it was easily missed.

Well, first guy comes plowing through hitting the loblollies and tall grass and then smacks into that fence. I swear it looked like some of those old Looney Tune cartoons Uncle Charlie laughed so hard at where a cartoon character will run into a fence and it stretches out but never breaks. The barbed wire never really did break but it stretched out pretty good. But motorcycles can't stay airborne forever either; it drug the fence and rider down where they lay still on the side of the gully farthest from me. The first dirt bike and rider hadn't hit the ground yet before a second comes plowing out of the tree line right behind it. With the fence partially out of the way, this rider only caught it the top strand with his front tire. This caused the bike and rider to flip end over end and they landed hard in the muddy bottom of the gully.

It was only having the noise of the dirt bikes cut out so abruptly that I could hear hooves running. I really thought it was the deer for a second except that it was too big of a sound. It was horses and the first rider through the loblollies drew his horse up so fast it reared up but the other horse riders were spread out enough that they didn't plow into the poor thing and push it down the steep side of the gully. The gully itself is about fifteen feet deep so it wasn't too difficult for the six horsemen to climb down into it to check on the dirt bikers.

That's when I realized they weren't friends. The horsemen weren't exactly gentle with the dirt bikers and it was just something about the weapons of the two groups that were different. The guns that the horsemen took away from the dirt bikers looked kind of fancy with black stocks. The guns the horsemen had looked a whole lot like something my dad, uncles, and grandfather would have had; brown stocks and some were rifles while others looked like they had two barrels like a shotgun.

I heard one of the horsemen tell the others that the rider hung up in the fence was dead; the wire had cut an artery and he bled out. The rider at the bottom of the gully was still alive and they roughly tied and dumped his unconscious body across the back end of one of the bigger horses; the horse didn't appreciate it one bit, I don't think the dirt biker was going to either.

There was a whole lot of talking and swearing that I won't repeat. I just stayed put and listened to what they were saying though it didn't make a lot of sense. They sounded like they were the law but I was to find out later that they weren't, at least not officially. They drained the fuel tanks and stripped off some parts from the bikes and then pushed the leftover carcass into the loblollies to hide them. They stripped the body of the dead guy and left him naked after they dumped him with the dirt bike remains. They said at least it would give some of the families some peace and when one of the guys questioned why they were bothering to take the dirt biker with them the guy who looked like the leader said, "information."

The leader of the horsemen wasn't anything like you normally think a guy in that position would look. This guy kinda reminded me of the banty roosters my friend from school used to raise for 4H … small and arrogantly grouchy. The leader was smaller in size than any of the other horsemen by at least a head and on the scruffy side; I couldn't tell if that was the way he normally was or if it was just the nature of things these days. He strutted around while the other guys did the work like he was thinking important thoughts and acting as guard. But all the men seemed to accept that he was the one in charge. It just looked weird when you don't normally think of guys like that as being the biggest in the pack.

It took them a while to get organized and then get out. The few times that any of them looked in my directions my guts got all loosey-goosey. I was relieved that none of them saw me; there were just too many adults in one place after not having to deal with them like that for a while. I have a feeling they would have made me go with them or would have taken Sparkleberry Ranch or something. They were enjoying what they were doing a little too much for me to feel like trusting them.

The horsemen finally left with their prisoner when it started to rain again. They cussed and fussed about that too but it did make them go away faster so I kept thinking, "bring on the rain."

I waited a couple of minutes until after I was sure the horsemen were gone and then I crawled through the grass towards where I had seen that other guy fall into the blackberries. I got over there to find the guy slowly pulling himself out. He lost his footing and rolled into the gully all the way. I heard him groan and mutter, "Oh crap that hurts." While I was trying to decide what to do he crawled out of the gully on my side.

The guy was all beat up – two black eyes, swollen nose, and busted lips all of which distorted his looks. His shirt wasn't much more than rags and through the tears I could see a lot more bruises, scraps, and cuts like he had been worked over. I could see his hands were all scraped up too like maybe it hadn't been a one-sided fight. He crawled over to lean against a tree but couldn't get up so sat on the ground where I noticed he was started to shiver really bad.

OK, it was stupid but I couldn't just let the guy be without giving him some help. I went over to him but stayed out of arm's reach and just looked at him. He was bigger than I was by quite a bit. He was built lean without being skinny. He had a lot of muscles but they were muscles from work, not from working out so he wasn't really bulky. Dark headed with a farmer's tan and I saw his eyes were chocolate brown when they finally got around to noticing me.

He jumped and then I jumped then I couldn't help it. Stupid stuff comes out of my mouth sometimes, "Were they ripe?"

The guy just looks at me and then asks, "What?"

"The blackberries. Were they ripe?"

I think the guy would have laughed if he hadn't hurt so much. He did snort, "No."

Then it was his turn to get a look at me. My braid had all sorts of junk stuck in it from where I had crawled through the grass and I know for a fact I was dirty too. He would have seen a girl with dark brown hair, on the short side at 5'2", green-eyed and thinner than she had been six months ago.

"Your dad or brothers around? I … I need some help. I need to get back home to help Uncle George. Mick is too young to do everything himself and Brendon is next to useless." Then he just sort of closed his eyes and fell over on his side which was so not good. The rain was starting come down a little harder and if I knew Florida weather it was going to get harder before it let up.

I thought about my choices. I could stay here with him until he woke up again. I could just walk away and let God sort things out. Or I could try and get him back to the house and then decide what to do with him. The story of the Samaritan popped into my head and I sure hope it was God giving me a hint of which one I should pick.

I wasn't sure how I was going to get him back to the house until I remembered the wheelbarrow. It looked awful funny once I finally got him up and into the barrow so that he wouldn't fall out. The guy is no lightweight that's for sure; but I'm not either. At "Good Eats" I moved around cases of frozen chicken, fifty-pound bags of flour and sugar, and did a lot of overhead lifting. Couple that with all the work I did at the warehouse moving bodies around when the flu ran through our numbers and I was capable of doing what needed doing. It wasn't easy, but I did it.

We were slowly moving along when he woke back up. "Hey, I'm not dead. Not yet."

"No kidding and if you don't stop moving you are going to get dumped on your head. You aren't exactly a ballerina you know."

He tilted his head back and got an upside down look at me. "No guys around?"

"Like I'm going to tell you that," I replied huffing more because the guy expected me to talk and push him at the same time.

"Stop and I'll walk."

I stopped but just to huff at him some more, "Look. I can push or I can talk, I can't do both. And I want out of the rain so just take the ride with good grace OK?"

I don't know how much he heard because he was out again. I managed to get all the way to the sugar sand trap where the road crosses the utility easement before running into any more problems. We weren't far from the house but I was running out of steam fast. I finally had to pull the wheelbarrow instead of push it across the easement and then turned around and got going the right direction again. My arms and legs were shaking by the time I pushed the wheelbarrow passed the barn and up to the porch.

"It's raining," the guy said making me jump and nearly dump him on the ground again.

"No kidding. Look, if you were serious about wanting to walk now would be the time."

"Give me a hand," he mumbled.

It wasn't easy but I got him out and even though he tried to walk on his own it was less nerve wracking for both of us when he leaned first on me and then on the front porch pillar while I unlocked the door. I could see it was a major effort for him to pick his feet up to step over the threshold of the door. I closed and locked the door and helped him into the bedroom that still had a bunk bed put together.

"Look, I don't want to take anyone's bed," he wheezed.

"Don't worry, you're not. Um, look you're wet. I can help you get undressed but not if you are going to be a baby about it. You're too big and if you fall you'll squash me."

He looked at me hard and I thought he was mad until he shook his head to clear it and said, "No. I'm bad off but not that bad. I need a sheet or something."

I brought him the sheet and a couple of towels and then thought about my dad's clothes. The jeans and fatigue pants wouldn't work, Daddy was shorter in the leg and thicker in the waist than this guy but there were some running shorts with a pull string waist that could. The t-shirts were the right size, they'd just fit different. Socks were socks. I went back to the room to find the guy sitting on the bottom bunk wrapped in the sheet shivering. His clothes were folded on top of his shoes by the bed.

I gave him Daddy's clothes and left to go take care of myself. When I got back he'd managed to dress himself except for the socks which I helped him with much to his embarrassment. It was weird but I wasn't embarrassed at all. It just seemed like the right thing to be doing.

"Where is everyone?" the guy asked. When I didn't answer right away he said, "You're here by yourself aren't you."

I wasn't too comfortable answering personal questions and it must have shown. "Look, I'm not like those guys but if … look, who were your family and I can probably tell you how you could find someone that would have a good word to say for me. Or you could go up to the church and … " and he had to stop when he got really pale in the face.

"You wouldn't have known my parents I don't think. They've been dead for a few years. I doubt you knew my aunt and uncle 'cause they didn't really get on with the locals, they only came here for a week out of the year. And you aren't much of a threat right now and if you were I've dealt with enough bigger boys that I can defend myself so don't sweat it."

He just looked at me for a second and then said, "Fair enough. So you aren't from around here, you weren't up here much and didn't have much to do with the locals. You live on the south side of US90 and it has been a while since things have been mowed. You must be the Snow girl with the big mouth."

My "big mouth" must have fallen open 'cause he grinned in a my-face-is-beat-up-and-swollen kind of way. "Relax. My uncle's cousin was Ruf Henderson, he used to do the bush hogging here. Used to talk about the people that owned the place and how the daughter could be a pistol with a mouth and had freaky green eyes. And don't worry about it, Ruf had a way of milking a story to make it sound worse than it was."

Then the guy actually winked at me, or tried to. We finally got around to talking a bit more. The guy's name is Rand Joiner… not Randall that was his grandfather's name. He went out of his way to be nice but not in a I-want-something-so-I'm-going-to-be-nice way but in a I-don't-want-to-scare-the-little-girl way which I thought was a little insulting considering he's not that much older than me. He's twenty and was a student at UF when they closed the school for the term because of the flu getting so bad all of a sudden. During the summers when he wasn't taking classes he lived with his aunt and uncle and helped on their farm the same way he had when he was growing up. Rand was an orphan like me only he was ten when his parents died. His parents were older when he was born; his mom was 42 and his dad was almost 52. When he was ten his mom got cancer and died really fast and his dad died of a heart attack a few months later. He went to go live with his Aunt Rachel and Uncle George; Aunt Rachel was his mother's sister and when he was eighteen she died of cancer too so it was his Uncle George and his cousins Brendan, Laurabeth, Charlene, Janet, and Mick when the pandemic hit.

He was very tired after we exchanged personal info and went to sleep without meaning to I think. It was still raining and the only good thing about that that I could think of is that it would wash away any footprints we made and perk the grass back up to hide our path in case someone came back.

The wood was still wet so I used a metal bucket and a cake rack to make a grill and set it on the lanai. I put some charcoal I had found in one of the garages that I had gone salvaging through in the bucket and created a grill like Momma taught us to make in girl scouts. While the charcoals were burning down I put some water on to boil, no since in wasting the fire.

With the hot water I made Sherpa tea, another one of those things from girl scouts that Momma taught us. You take two cups of powdered milk, one-third cup of sugar, two tablespoons of instant tea with lemon in it, and mix it all together. For every serving you mix a cup of boiling water with three tablespoons of the mix. It's basically doctored up warm milk but it's good when you get wet through.

After the water boiled I poured most of it into a thermos carafe and set it in the kitchen with the Sherpa Tea Mix. With the rest I used to make some chicken noodle soup using a Lipton dry mix. Lastly I made some hot water hoe cakes by mixing cornmeal, a little boiling water from the carafe, and a little salt together into a batter and frying it in non-stick spray. It wasn't the greatest meal but I hadn't ever had company by myself before.

I went back in the room and Rand was sort of awake and when I asked him if he was hungry I took his stomach growl for a yes. He wanted to get up and come to the kitchen to eat but it took him so long to try and get up I finally told him I'd bring it to him in bed. He just grunted but said thank you when I handed him the bowl of soup.

After he ate he slept for a little while longer. Once he was asleep Fraidy decided it was safe to investigate him and declared him a non-threat by purring and laying day at the foot of the bed. For some reason that made me feel better and I could go do the things I needed to do. I put the rain poncho back on and took the wheelbarrow back to the barn, brought in some wood for the wood box so it could hopefully dry overnight, cleared the screens on the water barrels, filled up a five gallon bucket with water and put it by the toilet in the bathroom closest to the bedroom Rand was staying in. The last thing I did was bring in a few more things in from the barn.

It was getting dark by the time I carried the last load to the porch and started to bringing it inside. I heard a thump in the hallway and looked up to see Rand trying to walk.

I said, "Bathroom is across the hall."

Rand sighed and said, "Already found it, thanks. You know, I didn't know where you were. Those guys could have come back. Girls shouldn't …"

I figured the sooner I dealt with this the better and told him, "Look, don't take this the wrong way but I'm sixteen, not six. I've been on my own one way or another for weeks now and before that life wasn't exactly a piece of cake. I may not be Laura Croft but I'm no wimp. I can take care of myself."

He opened his mouth to say something but shut it. I guess guys really do start getting smarter sooner or later. He shrugged and said, "Maybe, but you still need to be careful. We've been having a lot of trouble with this kind of stuff going on for a while."

That's when I asked him if he would tell me what had been going on. He was amazed at how insulated I had been at the warehouse. I told him that it didn't feel like they had been doing it to protect us but because they didn't want to deal with it.

Basically the pan flu had started making a comeback right after Christmas, he'd gone back to school and didn't think much of it but within a week of school opening all the dorms were quarantined and most of the off-campus housing too. Professors were falling like flies so that not even the university's plan to have classes online was working. They wound up shutting everything down. His Uncle George called him asking him to come home to help because most of his hired hands were down sick or members of their family were. When he got there he stayed in the shed until he was sure he wouldn't get sick.

It was in the weeks following that that the cities started going nuts because supplies weren't being shipped around like they were supposed to. Infrastructure broke down a whole lot faster than anyone imagined but this area wasn't doing too badly. But then people started leaving the cities because the utilities had broken down, violence had escalated, and supplies were just too hard to come by. The exodus from the cities was heavy but not as heavy as hurricane evacuations. That changed when some kind of detonation went off over DC and some smaller regular bombs went off all up and down both costs of the US as well as some up and down the Mississippi. According to the news this meant that most likely the bombs had been put in place using shipping containers.

A bomb had gone off in the Port of Tampa but we'd never heard about it at the warehouse. The coastal bombs were conventional, not nuclear or biological. The only nuclear one had been the one over DC but that didn't mean that people's fears could be controlled. All of the military bases as well as the National Guard facilities were rumored to be targets, Florida was no exception, and people panicked. What had been a steady stream turned into a tsunami and things got bad crazy real fast.

Rand's Uncle George was one of the smart ones and had locked down his farm and cattle at the first sign of trouble in DC. They also sat back far enough off of any major road that they were spared the locusts that left the cities. People were going, they didn't know where, they were just going.

Local law enforcement was overwhelmed and they gave up and got out of the way. Grocery stores, mini-marts, and restaurants were wiped out within two days leaving nothing for the locals. Refugee camps became hell holes of filth and disease. Right when everyone thought everyone had died that was gonna die, another small nuclear device went off in NYC and things got crazy all over again and more people died. State and local governments tried to do what they could but it's just not set up for the kind of things that people were expecting of it; everyone wanted to be taken care of but no one wanted to do the work or make the sacrifices.

The feds started rounding up people from the refugee camps and relocating them to places it was easier to serve. Rand's Uncle George said he suspected it had more to do with convenience than service. "They'll put these people in places that make it easier to control them. They want to minimize the threat of riots and maximize discipline. Can't says I blame them but I don't care for the consequences neither."

Even locals volunteered to be relocated when they were told they were guaranteed food and a job to help them get back on their feet. Not a single person has been heard from again that has left.

Locally there were a couple of gangs that used the area to build their meth labs. Those gangs have used the area to avoid the military and local law enforcement who have orders to institute zero tolerance for all drug activity … that means shoot on sight as necessary to eradicate the problem.

When I asked him about the horsemen being the local Law he said no, not really, they were vigilantes. The gangs have killed a lot of people around here looking for food and fuel. "In this area we have the remnants of gangs from Atlanta, Valdosta, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville … not to mention our own home grown crap heads."

The rate of violence is still very high; whole families can be wiped out overnight. There are shootings in broad daylight and not all of them gang related. "There are always going to be a certain type of person that will use a situation to exact revenge or take advantage; gang members aren't the only ones that do that."

Rand said that if he had to guess the population in this area was maybe 15% of what it was before Christmas. "There isn't much fuel to be found around here. Where the gangs get it I don't know unless it is shipped in through Tallahassee maybe. That means most people stay very close to home. Everyone's world has shrunk to the size of their own neighborhood."

I asked him, since he admitted living north of US90, how he had wound up so far from home. "Even the gangs are getting desperate for food lately. Some of us are experiencing raids for the farm animals. Those butchers don't want to trade like decent people, they just take. What's worse is that they'll shoot five cows to take just some meat off of one cow. They'll shoot up a whole hen house just to bag a couple. They either don't know or don't care about the waste and the misery they are leaving behind."

Rand had been working out back of the barn when he heard Laurabeth scream and a gun go off. He came running in time to see some gang bangers running off with a struggling Janet. "She's younger than you are, only twelve, and she's been frail since before Christmas when she had the flu. Uncle George, Brendon, and the girls were shooting at the gangbangers left in the yard so Rand took off after the ones that had Janet. He was able to get her loose from the truck they had thrown her into the back of as Uncle George and Brendon came running up the road. He saw them grab Janet but right after that the lights went out. Someone had hit him in the head.

He glossed over the next bit but basically they beat on him pretty bad until he got loose and started running. He'd been on the run for two days and had gotten caught once right before I saw him. That's when they sent the dirt bikes after him to play "man hunt." I filled in the blanks for him after that, describing what I had seen.

"That short man on the horse must have been Jared Harbinger. You stay away from him. You stay away from his two sons even more. Those three are bad business."

"Look, I don't think you've been listening when I told you about some of the foster kids I lived with or how I've been …"

"It has nothing to do with that. Jared used to be an OK guy; rough around the edges but OK. His wife died last year from the flu and his daughter was raped and killed by a gangbanger. I can understand his damage. Lately though he's gotten a little power hungry and a lot crazy. His sons are more than damaged though; they're just plain bad and always have been. They are about five or six years older than I am and they've always … look, they like younger girls, girls that don't make them feel inadequate. Girls that don't know any better, girls they can control. Since everything has broken down and they're dad has gotten crazy, they've only gotten worse. They aren't just bent, they're mean and don't know what 'no' means."

I promised him I wouldn't try making friends with the Harbinger brothers any time soon and that seemed to satisfy him but used up the last of his energy at the same time. He still insisted on walking around and checking all the windows and doors which I thought was sweet but kind of silly. He crashed and burned really fast after he drank a cup of Sherpa tea but I was wide awake. I got the wind up lamp and I've been writing all of this out ever since but I'm really starting to yawn so I'm going to go to bed. Tomorrow looks like it might be a pretty interesting day.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

May 6th – I woke up this morning even before Fraidy sang out. I slept better than I expected to, of course I locked the bedroom door like us girls always did when there was a new foster boy in the house. A few extra precautions go a long way. I hadn't really expected trouble, Fraidy likes Rand but like Daddy was always saying, "Better safe than sorry."

I decided on something special for breakfast. I know it is kind of silly but I like cooking better when there is someone to share it with. I made thin pancakes and then filled them with warm apple pie filling. I squirted a little bit of caramel ice cream topping on them that I found in the junk food from the lonely woman's house and then I made something Momma taught me – whipped topping from powdered milk.

First I set a metal bowl and whisk into a pan of freshly pumped well water. If the power was on you would put them in the frig for fifteen minutes but the really cold well water was just as good. Then you take one-third cup of powdered milk, one-third cup of ice water (pump water was ice cold so I used it), one-quarter cup of granulated white sugar, one teaspoon of lemon juice (from some of the packets that I found at the concession stand), and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. You don't have to use the vanilla but it does give the topping more flavor. You mix all of the ingredients together in the icy cold bowl and then you whisk it until peaks form. This means that you beat the heck out of it until you start to feel like you arm is going to fall off.

When I looked up from beating the topping Rand was standing there looking at me like I had two heads. It was kind of funny. When I explained what I was doing he looked at me like I was growing a third head but he sure didn't have a problem eating what I fixed. He finally laughed when I told him to slow down or he was going to make himself sick. "You sound like somebody's granny." I was very tempted to stick my tongue out at him but I didn't; that would only have made him feel more superior, boys are like that. And Rand may be twenty but he doesn't seem all that different from some of the boys that were at my highschool. Well maybe he does but he doesn't at the same time. Oh, I don't know how to explain it but I know what I mean.

After breakfast he told me that he needed to figure out a way to get home to his family. He kept asking me if I wanted to come home with him; he was sure his Uncle George wouldn't have a problem since I knew how to cook. Apparently the girls were still mostly experimenting because his uncle had taken over all the household duties when his wife died and the girls were never encouraged to learn until recently when there wasn't time for Uncle George to do everything. Even if I hadn't had Sparkleberry Ranch there was no way I was going to go be chief cook and bottlewasher to some family out of the blue. I'm not housekeeper material and my mouth would probably get me fired before I even started. I liked working at Good Eats but that's because I didn't have to deal with the customers and everyone else left me alone most of the time.

The problem was that Rand was in pretty bad shape no matter if he acted like he wasn't. That's another thing boys tend to do; they make a mountain out of a mole hill over a hang nail but it their leg was hanging by a single piece of flesh they'd act like they were ready for the Super Bowl. Guys are so weird. I told him if he moved any slower snails would leave him in the dust but there was no talking Rand out of it and I just had to respect that. If it had been me I would have been trying to get back to my family as quickly as possible too.

He had finally stopped asking me to come meet his family after a while so I had to stop asking him to wait a while longer before he took off. I think they call that Detent or something like that; an immovable object meeting an irresistible force. Sounds dorky put that way. Basically we just agreed to disagree and got on with what needed doing.

I found an umbrella that he could use as a walking stick to help him keep his balance and then made him some peanut butter crackers and some dried fruit to take in a poke sack so he'd have something to eat along the way while he put his jeans back on. I sewed up the holes as best I could but I'm not sure how long that'll hold if he plays rough in them again. I also put a couple of bottles of water in there for him. He was surprised about the water; his family gets their water from the ag well that is used for their cows, it comes from a windmill pump and they just bleed it off from a spigot.

I decided to walk with him as far as the CR49 gate and then decided to walk with him to the intersection of CR49 and US90. I didn't have anything to do that couldn't wait and I kinda felt bad about him leaving. I think Rand thought he could convince me to just keep going to meet his uncle. I was thinking of a polite way of trying to get away when we heard hoof beats again. I was all for stepping into the tall grass and weeds but Rand said to wait, that the gang bangers never used horses. Then the crazy guy whistled really loud when he saw the riders and they galloped over to him.

A couple of grown up men and some teenage boys got off their horses and surrounded Rand. I had guessed that the one that grabbed him and hugged him was his uncle so I started back home since Rand didn't need me anymore. I had gotten several yards away when a boy ran up beside me telling me that Rand wanted to introduce me to everyone. I just wanted to get away before someone figured they had to do something about me. I felt bad about making Rand hobble back towards me so I met him half way while the other boy followed behind.

The center of attention is not my favorite place to be. I wasn't in the mood to argue but didn't want to make a bad impression on people that I planned on being neighbors with; on the other hand I didn't want to be pushed around either. I can be polite enough when it suits me and I didn't want to shame the memory of my parents by acting like a donkey's back end so I let myself get introduced.

The man who had hugged Rand was his uncle. I offered my hand to shake and he grinned like I was a cute little thing. Oh brother. No need to wonder where Rand got that particular bad habit from. The other two men were just as nice in that old-fashioned kind of way that some grown up men are. One was called Pastor Ken and the other was a man named Mr. Pike. I don't know about Mr. Pike but I could tell that Pastor Ken is already working on plans in his head of what the community should do about me. He's a smart one and didn't say it out loud but I could see it in his eyes. Nice people are like that and you have to be very careful of them. They go out of their way to try and get tangled up in your life and trying to get untangled has a bad habit of hurting their feelings. They are well-meaning but they have a hard time understanding that there are people in this world that just don't want to be "helped." Aunt Wilma was like that and made it worse by trying to manage everyone's business since they couldn't seem to do it the way she thought best.

Two of the teenage boys were sons of Mr. Pike, the younger boy that had chased me down was Rand's cousin Mick and he's thirteen. The other teenage boy is Rand's cousin Brendon and boy is he trouble with a capital T. The girls must really go for him. He's what some of my friends would have called an Adonis and he totally knew it. He kept waiting for me to notice how pretty he was and I just kept ignoring him. I nearly laughed when he kept moving trying to catch my attention without looking like he was trying to catch my attention. Some boys are just so obvious. I figure he has enough girls eating out of his hand I'm not going to belly up to the bar and be another one.

Uncle George … I can't seem to think of him any other way in my head … did indeed ask me to come back to his farm. I finally convinced everyone that I wasn't budging but I figure I'll have some trouble with that along the way now that people know I'm out here and "helpless" since I don't have a grown up – particularly a male grown up – to take care of me. It's not that I don't appreciate it but people don't understand me much. Uncle Charlie used to say I was sixteen going on sixty. And now I'm nearly 17 and after that I'll be 18 and hopefully no one will be able to tell me where I can live and where I can't. I'm not stupid enough to think turning 18 will make everything perfect, it'll probably just bring more problems, but it sure would solve some of my problems right now.

I know I shouldn't but I'd lie about my age if I thought it would help.. In the end they'd make me prove it and I can't so it's just better to stick with the truth than have to remember some made up story that would just trip me up at some point.

It started to rain again and the men wanted to "escort me home." Normally the idea of riding on a horse would have sounded neat since I've never ridden one but I really didn't want any more people knowing where I live than necessary until I figure out how I was going to handle their well-meaning busybody-ness. What's done is done but I still need to make sure that people understand that I'm not budging.

Rand tried one last time but Uncle George laughed and told him to stop because it was "only making the girl more mule-ish." Sounds like something my dad would have said. I could tell Rand was just about give out at that point which made me glad that I wasn't going to have to worry about whether he made it home or not. They finally got going with Rand riding double with Mick. It was an effort for him to get on the horse and his cousin Brendon basically had to boost him into the saddle. He was still wearing Daddy's t-shirt but I didn't mind, somebody should get use out of them and Daddy would have been the first to say that Rand was a "good 'un" and tell me not to fuss about it.

As I walked back home I couldn't help but stop and look at the gully and think about how I had listened to the men telling Rand that Jared Harbinger had heard about the attack and gone looking for him with some of his community volunteers. I don't know what to think about that. I know people need to stick up for themselves but I've always heard that vigilantes are dangerous. And I watched a man die violently on my property and that can't be changed back ever. But if Harbinger hadn't chased the gangbangers and drove them to their reckless driving then maybe it would have been Rand that died. I know you have to stand up to bullies but I wonder where to draw the line; when do the victims that stand up for themselves turn from being defenders to being bullies themselves.

When I finished walking back to the house the sun was right over head so I figured it was noon so that would make it lunch time but I wasn't hungry for some reason. I decided to continue unboxing stuff from the bonus rooms and spent the remainder of the day doing that. I found lots more books, dishes, and my mom's thimble collection. I found candles but they are shaped funning from being up in the heat for so long. I think they will still work if I need them to. The votive candles are a little squashed looking but will work with the candle lantern. I suppose I better not use them unless I need to because I sure as heck don't know how to make candles that don't come out of an arts and craft kit.

The best find though was a couple of boxes of our old camping gear. I pulled out the sleeping bags, but one has a bad dry rot place on it at the end. I think I'll be able to cut it off and then turn it into a blanket for the bed for the winter though that seems a long way off. In the camping boxes I also found the old cooking gear; it won't do me any good without propane but I might be able to use the parts for something. Also found Daddy's tackle box; I wonder where his fishing poles went to. The tents, old Miss America lunch box that Mom used as a girl and then turned into our family's first aid kit, and lots of other odds and ends were in there. The best thing though was Daddy's fire starters.

I've got to figure out how to use them. I know you scratch one piece over the other but I couldn't get it to work. I don't think those things can break or go bad so I must be doing something wrong. I wish the packaging they came in was still around so I could find the directions. I'll figure it out; it can't be all that hard. I need to do it soon though 'cause I only have a few matches left. If it was winter I'd just keep a fire going but it's already getting hotter than blue blazes.

"Hotter than blue blazes" is one of those things that my parents used to say. They also said things like "slower than molasses in winter," "barking up the wrong tree," "don't count your chickens until they're hatched," and "even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and again." It makes me smile to remember all the weird ways they had of saying things. Good memories. I guess that is as good a way to end this day as any. At least the memories don't hurt as much as they used to.

I have plenty to do tomorrow so I better get to bed and get some sleep. Fraidy wanted to be out and about again tonight. I suppose she is hunting … I hope she doesn't bring me another lizard; that is disgusting.


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

 **May 7** **th** – Today is Sunday but I didn't realize it until a couple of hours ago; I had other things on my mind besides wondering what day of the week it was. After some pretty weird dreams I woke up thinking about how I was going to save matches. I have maybe two dozen left out of the box if every one of them fire up. I decided one way was to use one fire to make as many meals as possible. I experimented and I like the results so well I'm going to do one experiment a day.

This morning my experiment started by digging a hole in the ground away from as many tree roots as I could. The hole wasn't big, basically about 24" wide and 24" deep which was easy in the sand around the house. Grass doesn't grow between the back of the house and the tree line that starts about fifteen feet out so all I had to do was rake the oak leaves back before digging the hole. I laid a good fire in the hole and started it with the help of some dry Spanish moss. Speaking of Spanish moss, I don't plan on ever forgetting again that that stuff can have chiggers in it. Argh! For a while there I was going crazy with the itches.

Anyway while the fire was burning down I put the grate from the grill over the hole and then put two speckleware coffee pots full of water on it to boil water. When the water boiled I poured enough in my bowl to make instant oatmeal, a mug full for tea, and the rest went into a couple of thermos carafes for later. While the water had been boiling I put some dried pink beans into a Dutch oven and then poured a lot more water over them than they would need to plump up and cook in. I also added some dried chopped onion and a little salt and pepper. Last I put just a little sausage flavored TVP in there. TVP is OK but I wouldn't want a steady diet of it; but when you don't have fresh meat it isn't anything to turn your nose up at. We used it at Good Eats to stretch the meatloaf sometimes or added it to the spaghetti sauce; no one noticed.

When the fire had burned down to coals I took the coffee pots off the fire, moved the grate, and put in the Dutch oven with the beans and stuff in the hole. The lid was down on the Dutchie plus I added a "hat" of aluminum foil for a bit of extra protection. I knocked some of the coals onto the aluminum foil and then filled the hole back in with sand. I stuck a stick where the pot was buried so I could find it again without too much trouble.

Right after breakfast I started gathering more wood. I brought in seven wheelbarrow loads to try and get ahead and stacked the wood neatly in the barn so it would be out of the weather and away from prying eyes. Hopefully that'll keep the snakes out of the wood too. I saw a snake crawling over the old wood pile and I'm not sure what kind it was. I don't think walking up and asking it would do much good either. Avoidance is the better part of valor in my mind these days when it comes to snakes.

With the wood I even brought in a load of branches that are about as big around as my wrist to some that are as big as my biceps. I'll use the saw on those tomorrow to cut them down to better lengths. I was getting bored of gathering wood by lunch time so I stopped. I ate granola and dried fruit and drank cold water flavored with a lemon packet and a sugar packet. It tasted more like lemon water than lemonade but I was so hot I didn't care. And by then I was feeling the first chiggey itch. We always kept plenty of calamine lotion at the house because some of the foster kids didn't have a clue about country living and would go traipsing through the woods without socks, in shorts and tank tops. Someone was always playing in the poison oak. I'm one of those rare individuals that don't have a reaction to either poison oak or poison ivy … chiggers on the other hand make me feel like I have aliens crawling under my skin. I slathered the calamine on thick and then went out to the orchard to do what needed doing.

I took the sickle and the swing blade with me and "mowed" the orchard. First I used the big swing blade down and across the wide paths between the trees and then closer to the trees and bushes I used the smaller hand sickle. Man oh man, what back breaking work! It was worse than that time I got suckered into the Lutz Trash Bash by my Debate Coach. There were six of us covering one of the trashiest two mile stretches of road in the area and jerks would come by as we were picking up litter and honk their horn and then throw more trash out of their windows and laugh like it was the funniest thing ever. Ignorant jerks.

After I cut the grass I had to rake it up into mounds. I forget how many loads of grass I hauled off but instead of carrying it off into the woods I took it over to the nearest fence line and dumped it on the other side. There were some mangy, skinny cows off in the distance. They'd eaten over the whole field – I guess it was their pasture at some point – where they were roaming and I don't guess they were getting anything extra from their owner. Whoever owned them wasn't moving them around enough because even I could tell they weren't giving the grass and weeds time to grow back. The cows had even eaten all of the palmettos and the oak sprouts on their side of the fence and stuck their head through the fence and eaten what they could on my side of the fence as well.

By the third load of grass I dumped the cows had come over and were jerking the grass out of my hands as I was trying to toss it to them. I had one butt me through the fence. I don't think she meant to but I landed on a cactus and it took me a while tonight to get the last pokey out of my backside. Darn cows. I feel so bad for them. I suppose it can't hurt to throw a couple of loads of grass over the fence each day. It's not like I don't have a lot that needs trimming up.

After I had finished "mowing" the orchard I took a good look around. Just like Momma said there would be there were a couple of blueberries that were ready to eat. I pulled them and put them in my shirt pocket then took the tools back to the shed and hung them up and locked the door for the evening. I went inside and put my blueberries in a plate and washed my hands really well. It was time to finish preparing my dinner.

First I took a clean, empty thermos and put in a little instant rice; just enough for my dinner. Then I put in an equal amount of still extremely hot water from the thermos carafe and added a couple of pinches of powdered margarine from a big can of the stuff I found in the dormer room. You don't have to put butter in with your rice but to me it gives instant rice a smoother flavor. I closed the thermos up and set it on the counter and then went outside to dig up my beans.

Something had knocked over the stick that I used to mark the spot so next time I do this I'll use a rock or something. It took me a few minutes to remember where I had buried things and then some more time to un-bury them. The coals were still hot so I made a sort of s'more out of some marshmallows, a candy bar, and a couple of cookies that I found over in house number four where I got all the junk food from. I knocked the dirt and coals off of the aluminum foil I used to cover the Dutch oven and used that to wrap my s'more in before setting it on the now just warm coals.

I was nervous about opening the Dutch oven. I figured if things didn't work out I would at least have some rice and a s'more to eat for dinner; but I was hungry. I finally got up my courage and carefully took the lid off with a heavy stick. I got just a little sprinkle of left over sand in the pot but I was able to keep most of it out. Next time I'll use a brush or something on the lid before I open it up or be more careful to cover the lid better while it is in the ground.

The experiment was a success. There were a couple of beans that were a little chewy on top and a couple of beans on the bottom that were a little burnt and I put a few too many onions but despite that the beans weren't really bad at all. The rice turned out OK too. Beans and rice – oniony beans and rice – hit the spot after all the work I did today. I don't know if I'm fit for company to be around but since there isn't anyone else around who cares. My belly is full and that's more than some can probably say. The s'more was a little rich but still oowey goowey good, and I'm saving the blueberries for breakfast.

After dinner I covered the hole with a piece of sheet metal to save having to dig a new one in case I want to try this again another time. I cleaned up the dishes and utensils using the second carafe of hot water. And then it was time to clean myself up. While I shivered in the cold bathwater I kicked myself for not putting a bucket of water on to the coals instead of the s'more.

Now that I'm sitting up here in the dormer room all fresh and clean listening to Fraidy purr as she licks her fur back in place sitting in a sunbeam I've had time to think about what I learned today.

1\. I can be resourceful if I put my mind to it. I remember a lot more from scouts and of what Momma and Daddy taught us while camping than I thought I did. I just have to actively try to come up with new ways of doing things and not just assume something will turn up when I need it to.

2\. Make a chore worth more than just one job. I needed to cut the grass in the orchard but it also was a way to feed the cows. Tomorrow I need to cut the grass under and around the clothes line so that will be the cows' food for tomorrow.

3\. The cooking pit is a good idea but I can make it better by starting the beans the night before and making it enough to cover both lunch and dinner the next day instead of just one meal. And once I dig the pot up I can use what is left of the heat in the coals to warm wash water in one of the metal buckets.

4\. Thermos cooking is another good thing to do and I need to figure out how to cook more food that way.

5\. Wear gloves when I work and I won't have so many hurts the next day. If I keep this up I'm going to run out of Band-Aids fast. I'm wearing four of the things right now, not including the one on my backside from the cactus trying to turn me into a pin cushion.

6\. Never underestimate a hungry animal. They might not mean to hurt you but hunger can make them desperate.

7\. You eat more food when you are working hard than when you are at rest, that means cooking more food; and that means that the food I have isn't going to last the four months I thought it would if I'm not careful.

I'm going to try and learn something new every day. And I think experimenting will be a good thing too. I also need to think about stopping earlier in the day as far as working goes because I need to have daylight left to read by. The only thing I have had time to do tonight was write in my journal and make a big year-long calendar.

I was going to use the posterboard for the calendar but there aren't twelve sheets of it so I decided to use a big roll of bulletin board paper I found in the neat little house (house #2). I figure someone in that house was a librarian or a teacher or something like that. I think I did a pretty good job; there is lots of room in each day's square to write. In each square the things I do will be in ink and the things that I plan to do will be in pencil. I used the markers from the first house and the craft supplies from house #4 to mark off special days. Next Sunday is Mother's Day and that has been hard for me ever since the wreck. Aunt Wilma used to offer to take me to the cemetery for that day so I could put flowers on their graves but after the first time I never wanted to go back again. I cried so hard I puked down the side of Uncle Charlie's new car.

I remember when I was little Daddy having a bit of a tiff with his sister over the fact he didn't see the sense in spending a lot of money on my grandmother's headstone. He gave in when his other siblings had their say but basically Daddy thinks too many people treat cemeteries like the old Egyptians did. Expensive funerals, being buried in fancy and expensive coffins, and headstones that are as pricey as pyramids. Then people would come back and "worship" the dead with more reverence than they treated the person with when they were alive. Daddy kept fussing that his mother wasn't in the coffin or in the ground, that she was in Heaven with better stuff than any funeral parlor could give her. That kind of talk makes people uncomfortable. And I guess I know who I took after the most. Momma always said I got my Daddy's stubbornness. Things eventually smoothed out but Daddy wrote up a paper saying what he wanted when he died and it wasn't a sad, expensive funeral. He wanted people to have a party to celebrate his "home going." He felt very strongly about this; Momma did too but not so loudly as Daddy did. As far as I know it didn't happen. I was in a coma and they couldn't have an open casket so everything was done very quiet. Daddy and Momma were passed caring at that point but I don't think they would have minded; guess I'll find out one of these days if it even matters by then.

But that made me feel guilty about not saying any words over Uncle Charlie even though he had come to Sparkleberry Ranch without me or not even thinking about that dead guy over in the loblolly pines just laying out in the open. Uncle Charlie will be easy. I saw a piece of limestone that will work for a marker just on the other side of the fence where the cows were. I'll get it tomorrow. I never really connected with Uncle Charlie; I always found him too superficial or something. It's like he didn't want me to get to know the real him. I honestly don't think he liked me much but he at least tried not to show it and I know he really did love Aunt Wilma and her crazy causes. They were like peas in a pod, only Aunt Wilma was the louder pea.

The gangbanger is going to be harder but I suppose it is the right thing to do, whatever that means. I'm not looking forward to the burying part though. I keep having these memories of those two people in that house I went into when I was on my bike trek.

 **May 9** **th** – I'm sitting here by the window in the dormer room playing catch up in my journal while I try to wrap my head around the last two days. Didn't write anything yesterday; didn't get finished with all the stuff I had to do until dark and by then I was just too tired to stay up.

For one thing I overslept on Monday and Fraidy made a mess that took me a while to clean up. I don't think kitty is going to be staying inside until I can figure out a litter box for her. That was just too nasty first thing in the morning and the family room stank so bad that I couldn't stand it. I put some perfume on a piece of cloth and sat it out but that made it worse; for a while there it smelled like someone had pooped really cheap perfume, most definitely not cool. I gagged it was so bad and I thought I was past being grossed out by anything. I'm not sure I want to know what she has been eating.

For breakfast I just fixed a glass of milk and put some dried fruit and granola in a bag and took it outside to eat while the house aired out. That gave me the time to get the rest of the sleep out of my brain and make a list of the things I wanted to do that day. I should have done it the night before but I forgot. It just feels stupid to put down on my list of things to do to make another list of things to do, but it looks like that's what I'm going to have to do. Sometimes my short term memory for details doesn't work so good. The doctor's say that is from the coma but it isn't near as bad as it used to be. Lists and calendars help me though so that's why I use them. So do pictures and diagrams and written directions. It's mainly when people are talking at me that I have a hard time.

I guess that might be one reason why I have trouble being around people. After the coma I was diagnosed with this stuff called APD or auditory processing disorder. One of the doctors said I may have had it before the accident but was able to compensate for it enough that no one noticed. It is very "mild" but it can be a pain in the rear bumper. For instance, if more than one person is talking to me at a time or if someone is trying to talk to me while a bunch of other sounds are occurring I don't "hear" the person talking to me even if they are right next to my ear. Their voice blends into all the other sounds around me. I can "hear" them only if I concentrate really hard on what they are saying, usually I just read their lips. I also have to look at the person that is talking to me and sometimes I stare really hard which freaks people out. Not many people got it, or if they did they would forget, so I had to ask people to repeat themselves all the time which is totally embarrassing. People used to think I had a hearing problem so when they talked to me they talked really loud which always made people look. I hated that. It isn't my hearing that is the problem; it's that my brain can't always decode the sounds my ears hear. I just gave up after a while; it was simpler for all of us. My grades stayed really high and I only participated in things at school that didn't make my APD obvious so Aunt Wilma didn't blow a gasket and left me alone about it. The only exception to my rule was Debate and our coach used to laugh and tell me to keep staring at my opponent because it shook them up and made them lose their stride. Not exactly fair of me but it wasn't fair that I got stuck with this stupid disorder either. At least it is good for something … and I have a real talent when it comes to ignoring someone that I don't want to listen to. All I have to do is hone in on another sound and "poof" it's like the other person isn't even talking anymore.

So lists and calendars and schedules rule. Ra-ra-ra-ship-boom-ba. Of course that is only if I remember to use them which I ought to know by now that I have to. But I forgot and that's all there is to it. No excuses. Maybe I didn't want to think about what I had to do.

It was no good putting it off for long; but things just got all turned around no matter what I tried. First I went to go get the limestone rock for Uncle Charlie's marker. The cows were back and practically ran me over looking for grass. I couldn't do anything so I had to backtrack and get the swing blade and cut the grass under and around the clothes line to give them something to do while I got the rock.

Have you ever been goosed by a cow? Let me tell you it makes you feel pretty stupid. I was bent over trying to lever the rock up out of the sand when I got a nudge to remember in a place that no one should be nudging me. I jumped pretty high and squeaked. I have a feeling if cows could laugh those would have been rolling on the ground. I wiped the cow slime off of my pants … yuck … and finally managed to get the big rock over to the fence and dump it into the wheelbarrow. If the rock had been any bigger it would have had to stay where it was.

I caught my pants on the barbed wire climbing back over and poked myself pretty good. There was a little bit of blood but it made me glad that the owner of Good Eats had made all of the employees get a tetanus booster when they started to work at the restaurant. Story was she had lost a brother to tetanus way back in the 1940s when she was a little girl. I guess it was her way of making the memory of her brother serve a higher purpose or something. I looked up tetanus once just to see how bad it was or if it was a blow off thing. After reading about tetanus I promised myself I would never let my tetanus booster run out. That is some nasty stuff. I wonder if we'll ever have tetanus shots again?

I wheeled the rock over to Uncle Charlie's grave and then just dumped the rock on top of where I remembered it being; the rain had flattened everything out so I'm not exactly for sure. I had a hard time coming up with something to say that didn't sound all preachy and insincere. I figured I owed the man sincere if nothing else. That's when I realized I wasn't talking to Uncle Charlie or some group of people, I was talking to God. After that it was easy, I just thanked God for putting Uncle Charlie in my way even if I didn't always understand why things had to be the way they were. I said I was thankful for the things I had learned from Uncle Charlie even if he hadn't really meant to teach me anything. And I said I appreciated him and Aunt Wilma taking me under their roof. Like I said, I think I owed the man's memory that much.

Next came the part I really wasn't looking forward to, but I made myself take a break first and drink some water. No lunch, I knew that would be a mistake.

Got a bandana to cover my face with and took the gloves and shovel with me as I walked to the dogleg turn by the gully. The wind was blowing my direction as I got out of the trees and the smell was really bad. Worse were the turkey vultures that were all over the place. I nearly turned back. I knew I shouldn't though because just in case I needed to make sure none of that gangbanger wound up in the gully … a place I might need to get water from at some future point.

I walked around the gully and climbed the fence. I pushed my way through the trees and grass, knocking vultures out of my way every once in a while. I knew I was headed in the right direction because the smell was getting worse. When I got there my brain just sort of turned off, I turned around and walked all the way back home and then just sat on the porch for a while.

He hadn't been all there, just like Uncle Charlie, only it was worse because he was … fresher I guess you would call it. God created the order of things in this world and I know it got corrupted by Adam and Eve's fall from Grace but man … I just can't understand why things have to be the way they are sometimes. What used to be a man had obviously been partially tore into by a predator, vultures couldn't do that. It wasn't a gator because there wasn't the right kind of water close enough for that. Maybe coyotes … or dogs. All I know is that insides were outside and outsides were spread around. God is just going to have to clean this one up because I now realize that there are some things I just can't do. Maybe if it was closer to the house I could force myself to but I just can't do that right now.

I just didn't feel like doing anything else the rest of the day so I went up to the dormer room and started looking for Daddy's gun cabinet keys again. I found the keys in the first place I should have looked. Momma used to say that Daddy would find the oddest things funny. It must have tickled him to hide the keys in relative plain sight. They were in his filing cabinet taped to the inside of a hanging file entitled "lost and found." I didn't find it funny but I can see Daddy thinking it would have been.

When I opened the Sentry gun safe I got a surprise; there were five long guns in there. Three are rifles and two are shotguns; I know this because the rifles have smaller diameter barrels while the shotguns have great big ones. There were also a couple of more handguns than I expected to find. There was the German officer one that had the "SS" engraved on the butt of the gun and the Mark III that looked like a cool James Bond gun just like I remembered but there were three more and I didn't know what they were. They all looked alike and they came in hard-sided gray plastic boxes. The guns were black and there was a book in the box that said "Smith & Wesson" on it. I guess at some point I'll need to read one of those books and see what I'm supposed to do with them.

The other thing in the gun safe was a big manila envelope with "JOYCE" written on it in big, black letters. Joyce was my mom's name and I wondered why dad would put that in there. I opened it and inside was a bunch of legal papers: insurance, military records, deeds, and stuff like that. There was also a set of blueprints for this house and the out buildings and aerial photos of Sparkleberry Ranch itself. I wouldn't have thought anything of it except that on the aerial photos I realized Daddy had drawn in where he had buried the two cache tubes for the roll down poles and extra sets of keys. I had already dug up one set and the other one was marked right where I remember it being buried.

That made me look at the house blueprints closer. At first I thought I was only looking at Daddy's notes of things he wanted to do to the house or where he had put in access panels for repairs and maintenance of plumbing and wiring and stuff. But when I matched his pencil marks up with the dormer room I realized that the room dimensions were wrong. I walked back to the part of the dormer room that was over my parents' bedroom and comparing the drawings to the room again saw an "x" that corresponded to a cabinet. I opened the cabinet and instead of it having a solid back there was a vent cover. Using the solar lamp for light I took a screwdriver and removed the vent cover. There was a small finished cubby hole behind the wall. Nobody could stand up in it but I could squeeze in there and squat if I didn't mind the claustrophobia. There were metal boxes lined up on top of little wooden pallets and when I opened them up they were full of bullets … a lot of bullets … boxes and boxes of bullets. About half of the metal boxes had little boxes in there that said .22LR on them. Some of the remaining boxes had shotgun shells in them in all sorts of colors; I remember what those were from my Granddaddy's farm. The rest of the metal cans had boxes in them that said 9mm. I guessed that this was one of my dad's "surprises."

I knew there were other surprises and I saw some other X's marked around the house, the barn, and the shed but it was getting too late at that point to go hunting. I was too … something … to really eat but I fixed some milk and soup and made myself eat anyway. I cleaned up the fire pit, put Fraidy outside so I wouldn't have another mess to clean up, put away my dishes and decided to sleep up in the dormer room. I feel safer when I'm up here. It doesn't matter that I keep the accordion shutters closed and the roll down doors down, it just feels … it feels like Daddy is watching over me when I'm up in the dormer room. I know that isn't true but it feels like it.

It took me a while to fall asleep and I woke up to Fraidy's normal singing only it was right outside the dormer window that I had left cracked to get some air. Somehow the crazy cat had gotten onto the roof and knew just where I was; silly ol' thing. I opened the window all the way, removed the screen and then opened the accordion shutters just enough for her to come in. The sky was beginning to lighten so I knew it was time for me to get up. I relocked the shutters and put the screen back in and by the time I turned around Fraidy had climbed onto my bed and gone to sleep. Silly ol' thing.

I went downstairs, got dressed and made a command decision that my outside chores could wait. I wanted to know what those X's were about. But first I needed breakfast since I hadn't eaten much the day before. I decided to do another experiment.

Working at Good Eats taught me a lot. One of the things Mrs. Belle – that was what the owner asked us to call her – taught me was how to cook things in a skillet you didn't normally think could be cooked in a skillet. One of the favorite week day breakfast take outs at the restaurant was Pan Biscuits. They could be made with dried fruit and we sold six or seven different flavors that depended on what Mrs. Belle could get on sale through her supplier. I had a box of dried cranberries so that is the flavor I tried to make. I had never made the biscuits on an open flame before but I was willing to give it a try.

In one of the Swiss Colony gift packs from house #4 was a baking mix. I took a cup of it and added two tablespoons of dried milk, one tablespoon of sugar, and the little box of cranberries. Then I added one-half cup of cool water and mixed well so that there weren't any dry lumps left. Mrs. Belle always said, "mix it don't play with it." She meant that you mixed it only as much as it needed mixing and then you left the dough alone.

I heated my skillet over the open fire and then sprayed in a really thick coat of non-stick spray. We used olive oil at Good Eats but I didn't have any. You dump the dough into the hot skillet and then spread it out. I had to keep moving the skillet around because at the restaurant we had it over a low heat for five minutes. At the end of five minutes I sprayed the uncooked side with spray and then flipped the giant "biscuit" over. I had burnt the bottom a little bit but it was still looking and smelling good. You let that side cook for five minutes on low heat and then you take the skillet completely off the heat, flip the biscuit onto a plate and drizzle it with honey. Gosh that was so good. I hadn't realized how much I had been missing bread.

When I took the skillet off the heat I put water on to boil. When the water boiled I poured it into the thermos carafes again. The coals of the fire were burning down but they were still hot so I put a big metal bucket of water to absorb what heat was left.

After breakfast I went on a treasure hunt. I started in the house. There was an X in the summer kitchen, an X under the kitchen sink and an X up in the second bonus room. The X in the summer kitchen was behind Momma's cookbook shelves I took all the cookbooks off the shelves and still couldn't figure out what I was looking for. I was getting frustrated so I looked at the blueprints again and realized that the X looked like it was on a door but there wasn't a door there. I opened the cabinet door beside the shelves thinking maybe Daddy's X was in the wrong spot. I looked and on the side of the cabinet next to the shelves there was a latch. Only a short person would notice it, anyone taller than me wouldn't see it unless they bent down and were looking for it. I pulled the lever and the shelves made a popping noise and moved a little bit but still wouldn't move. After playing with it for a good fifteen or twenty minutes I finally figured out you have to pull the release latch, push the shelves and then pull on them. If you didn't push the shelves the hook from the latch didn't fully disengage. I don't know if Daddy built it like that or if something needs greasing but I finally was able to pull the shelf and it swung open just like the door on the blueprint.

There was a long narrow room that ran the whole length of wall with the summer kitchen on one side and the formal dining room on the other. I found Momma's "fruit cellar." Daddy had built her tall narrow shelves that had extra strips of wood across the front to keep the jars from falling out. The shelves were full of empty jars. I smiled thinking about how much Momma must have loved this. Then I noticed a box on one of the lower shelves … it had a bunch of rings and lids in there. I knew that if I could figure out how to make the boiling water bath canner work on an open fire I would definitely have the jars and lids to can with.

I put the cookbooks back where I found them if not quite the way they came off the shelves. I'll have to fix that another day.

The X in the kitchen was easy to locate but there wasn't anything there. Either there had never been anything there or someone had found it already. It was just a very small box behind the wall so I don't know what it was supposed to hold.

The X up in the second bonus room was a pain in the tush to get to. I had to move out all of the boxes I hadn't gone through yet and then I had to move some furniture that had been stored up there. That wasn't a total waste of time because I found my great grandmother's treadle sewing machine. I think it is missing the belt that fits on the wheel that makes the needle go up and down. I might be able to rig up something but I still have to find needles and stuff like that to make it work.

I finally got back to the wall and moved a desk that was in the way. There was another big vent cover like in the dormer room. I wiggled around and unscrewed it and there was another finished cubby hole kind of storage area.

It was full of those big cans but there were no paper labels on them. I pulled one out, it wasn't very heavy, and then I remembered. Momma had gone in partners with a couple of women and had a friend to get them permission to use the LDS cannery. I remember going with Momma and her telling me to sweep and pick up litter so that we could show our appreciation by leaving the grounds cleaner than how we found them. I remember asking Momma what LDS meant but I can't remember if she ever told me. Of course I know what it means now. I pulled out can after can - #10 size now that I'm thinking about it right – and saw that Momma had written what was in each can on top in black marker.

Some of them had dried beans in them and wheat in them. Some of the heavier ones had dried veggies and fruits. One said it had Tang in it and one of the really light cans said Kool-aid packets. The heaviest cans had rice and sugar in them. I counted, there were forty of those cans in there; not as many as had been in the dormer room but it for sure added to my supplies. Then in the back corner there were big glass jugs with Heinz vinegar labels; I checked and the seals were all still good. There was three little barrels of honey, four of sorghum molasses, two of cane syrup, and one of maple syrup. I don't remember seeing the containers of sweeteners before, that must have been something that Momma got from her brother and sister in Kentucky. Now I guess I understand why Momma fussed at Daddy that time; she could can things herself and it would be cheaper that buying it from somebody else.

That was it for the house and I was eager to see what was out in the barn and shed. The barn hideaway was the easiest to find and the room was also the biggest. It was behind Daddy's work benches. There was a closet there that was supposed to be for coveralls and stuff but it was empty. In the closet were pieces of the pot belly stove that we used in the lean-to when we came up to the property in the winter before the house was finished enough for us to sleep in. But that wasn't what the X was for. There was a short door inside the closet and when I opened it I saw a long narrow room that I could stand up in, even a grown man could stand up in it. There were shelves all down one side of the room and the shelves had all sorts of little bins and containers on them. The bins held nails, screws and lots of stuff like that. In a box in the corner of the room were long fluorescent bulbs; I guess those were spares for the barn and shed lights. There were all sorts of old hand tools but they were all kind of greasy like they'd been oiled up or something. I had found Daddy's junk room. Momma never cared what Daddy drug home – well, she didn't care much – so long as it wasn't left out for my brother and I to get into. Daddy was always bringing home stuff from flea markets and yard sales and from out at the base; Momma was just as bad but Daddy would even do something called dumpster diving and that did make Momma cringe. I think my parents would have been called pack rats if Momma wasn't such a bear about keeping everything neat and organized.

Last place I looked was the shed. It took me a while to figure out that the bench that was inside the shed opened up for storage and in the bottom of the storage was a false bottom that lifted out. Inside was a concrete lined space and in this space were two little canisters of propane. I guess Daddy meant to have more in there but there hadn't been time. Two was more than I had before but I left them were they were. Daddy stored them in the shed for a reason and I had enough mess in the house. Besides something had been chewing on the paper labels on the canisters and that was pretty gross. I figure from the way it looks that it was roaches.

I completely skipped lunch but I was starving by the time I'd found everything. I was tempted to use the camp stove and propane that I had found but I decided to save it for an emergency since I was doing fine without it so far.

For dinner I put some pasta in the thermos and dumped the near boiling water over them and closed the thermos and set it on the counter while I took my first really warm bath in a while. Wow, I couldn't believe how much cleaner I got. It was really gross scrubbing all that dirt and dead skin off but I feel so much better it was worth turning into a prune. Tomorrow the hair gets the same treatment. The other gross thing though was I found a tick behind my earlobe. How gross is that?! I bled like a stuck pig when I finally got it out and I put lots of peroxide and then triple antibiotic salve on it. Yuck. It has to be from carrying that grass to the cows. I'm going to need to be more careful. I've been checking Fraidy every day and so far so good … no ticks, no fleas. I don't know what I'm going to do when her collar runs out of juice.

The pasta noodles were OK but were still chewy. I probably didn't put enough water in there or too much pasta. It didn't matter, I added the squeeze cheese and I ate yummy macaroni and cheese for dinner. I cleaned up, put Fraidy out, yada, yada, yada and then came up to the dormer room to think.

It's been an interesting two days but now it is time to get back down to business. The mysteries have all been solved and I'm 99.9% sure that I've found everything there is to find. These are the tasks for tomorrow: cut grass for the cows from around the where the garden is supposed to go and then lay tarps down to start killing the grass and stuff underneath, take the food out of the cubby closet in the second bonus room and put it in the summer kitchen, gather some more big wood and stack it in the barn, try and finish inventorying and bringing in one-third of the stuff that remains in the barn, open and put away two boxes of my parents' stuff, look for canning recipes for blueberries in Momma's books.

I have felt really close to Momma and Daddy the last two days; like they have been looking out for me somehow. But just like eventually I would have had to grow up if they were still alive and do things for myself and make my own way in the world I think maybe the same thing is going to happen from here on out. Their sacrifices gave me a place to go and a chance to get on my feet, but from here on out I have to start planning for a future that doesn't include stuff that they left hidden. One day I'll use up all the stuff, probably sooner than I expect. When that happens I have to be able to provide more stuff for myself. And I can't wait until the last second to do it. You can't cram for this exam.

Uh oh, I hear a boy cat off in the woods; I sure hope Fraidy is fixed.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

 **May 10** **th** – I am so sore I'm tempted to never pick up another gun in my life. I said tempted, not that I wouldn't. Everything hurts. I guess I can't blame the gun for that but still.

It was raining this morning so cooking another batch of beans in the ground was out. Heck, a fire outside was out so I had to make a fire on the charcoal grill that was still on the lanai because I hadn't gotten around to putting it back in the shed where it belonged. I fixed an omelet with some cheese and meat stick chopped up in it. The cheese and meat stick came from some more of those Swiss Colony gift boxes from house #4. The omelet turned out to be not so bad this time; either that or I'm getting used to those powdered eggs.

It was only sprinkling by the time I finished cleaning up after my breakfast so I took the swing blade and cut grass out of where Momma had always planned to have the garden. If I am going to have any kind of garden this fall I have a lot of work to do. I carried the grass to the cows but there was only nine cows this time. Off on the other end of the pasture I saw vultures circling. It didn't take two years of calculus for me to figure out what had happened; how it happened really didn't matter so much. But when no one ever came to take care of the carcass I started thinking maybe these cows weren't being taken care of at all. It made me think that maybe, if I watched for a little longer and saw that no one ever came to check on them I could choose to take care of them myself. I wrote down on my notepad to think about how I could fence the cows up on my forty and give them new pasture. The where was easy. The SW quadrant was the lowest point on the property and it was full of palmettos and scrub along with sparkleberries and blackberries. There was barely a person path through there but I bet cows wouldn't have any problems; and there would be plenty for them to eat for a season or two so they could fatten back up. The fence though would be a problem. And I needed to be able to have a good enough reason to keep the cows too. They will be a lot of work and I know a girl cow has to have a baby cow before she will give milk. There aren't any boy cows over in the pasture that I see which means no babies which means no milk … so why would I keep the cows?

After feeding the cows – and I think they aren't quite as skinny as they used to be – I got out the old plastic visqueen that Daddy salvaged from some building site after it went bankrupt and was abandoned. I laid this down in strips where I wanted the garden and used giant metal "staples" to hold the plastic sheeting in place. I used to help Momma do this every season at our house in Tampa. There she did it to kill the nematodes that tried to ruin the garden every year. Here I was hoping to do that but also hoping to kill all the grass and weeds so it would be easier for me to turn the dirt over the first few times. I'm sure as heck not going to have a rototiller to do it.

Next I worked on inventorying and bringing in a bunch of stuff from the barn. The problem I was having was keeping everything organized as I brought it in. All those fancy gift packages of food from the lonely lady's house and all of that junk food needed to be put in the summer kitchen which is where I am going to keep the food. But when I started doing that I realized I was going to have to unpackage everything. When I did that I realized my recycling boxes would never hold it all. I unpackaged things any way and used a lot of the plastic containers I had found to organize all the bits and pieces in the cabinets and on the shelves. The trash was making a mess so I found several trash cans out in the barn that I used for my overflow of recycling junk. I put in my notebook that I needed to find a way to use the trash pretty soon or I was going to have to burn it.

All that organizing also made me realize that I had made a mistake bringing all the big cans from the dormer room downstairs. It was just too hard to find room for cans that big. I sure wasn't going to be able to figure out how to find room for the cans in the cubby hole up in the bonus room. I decided to compromise. I kept or brought down one can of each item and put them in the summer kitchen pantry cabinets, especially the sweeteners. The rest would either stay in the cubby hole or go back to the dormer room and I would try and figure out a way to store it neatly and out of the way. I put that at the top of my list to do tomorrow.

I managed to bring in the last of the edibles from the barn, inventory them, and then put them away before I got frustrated and bored with doing that. I was going to start gathering wood but it started to rain again. Besides I was getting hungry and regretted not planning ahead better.

I was hot, hungry, and getting irritable at how hard it was to make sure I remembered to do everything in the right order. I missed having a microwave where I could just nuke something if I got hungry. I just ate some more granola and some dried strawberries and made myself a glass of milk. That satisfied me but didn't fill me up but it stopped my stomach from complaining.

It continued to rain so I decided to work on the bonus rooms. They were a horrible mess where I had kind of been throwing things around and then when I shoved all the boxes and furniture to the side to get to the cubby hole I just made it worse. I started by cleaning up bonus room one which was the one where the stairs are. I put a futon I had uncovered in that room, a coffee table in front of it and two end tables on each end. I put lamps on the end tables but they were only for decoration and to get them out of the way. All of the pictures I found I took downstairs; I'll figure out where to hang them over the next week or so. There was the curio cabinet that Daddy made Momma for their fifth wedding anniversary and I was surprised that none of the glass had broken I carefully moved that to a corner where it is out of the way and put all of Momma's breakables in there. They don't have any rhyme or reason to them and there are too many in the cabinet but I figure I can redecorate once I get things more settled.

I carried down all of the clothes and dumped them in one of the spare bedrooms, the one that would have been mine had things been different. I'll put the clothes away after I make sure they are worth saving and I need more hangers which means going back to at least one of those abandoned houses some time soon. I put Momma's notebooks and cookbooks in the summer kitchen on the shelves in there since there is still plenty of room. Daddy's books and papers I took up to the dormer room. I had just about had my fill of organizing for the day so I decided to do something that I needed to do.

I opened the gun safe up and looked at all the books. The shotgun looked like the simplest to figure out. On the book it said it was a Remington Model 870 Express Deer. I guess that means that it is used for deer hunting. I had seen plenty of deer on the property and I knew eventually I would need to figure out how to get meat on my own so I figured that would be the one to start with. First I followed the directions for checking all of the pieces of the big gun over. Next I cleaned it using the directions in the packet of papers and the directions in the gun cleaning kit that was also in the bottom drawer of the gun safe. I didn't think it was a good idea to load it in the house so after I crawled into the ammo hole and grabbed a handful shotgun shells I took everything outside.

The directions were easy to understand but I was still a little scared. Before I loaded the gun I picked something to shoot at. There was a dead tree about 30 yards to the north of the house on the other side of the area we used as a campfire ring. I moved just on the other side of the fire ring and I followed all the directions for loading and making sure the safety was in the right position. I pumped it and did everything right, I'm sure of it. Then why do I feel so stupid?!

I aimed, pulled the trigger, and … I felt like one of the cows kicked me in the shoulder. The blast from the gun was so loud and it pushed me backwards. I wasn't expecting it and just when I thought I had my balance I tripped over the logs around the fire ring and fell backwards. I cracked my head on the ground and my teeth clacked together and I bit my tongue hard enough to make it bleed. The only good thing I can say is that I never dropped the gun and kept the barrel pointed away from me the whole time.

My shoulder is actually bruised; kind of a purple and rose color. I spit blood for nearly thirty minutes until my tongue stopped bleeding all the way. Needless to say I think I started with the wrong gun. But I couldn't believe it when I saw that I had actually hit the tree … it wasn't the part of the trunk I was aiming for but I still hit it. When I'm not sore anymore I'll go down to the rifle; I think you can hunt with rifles too.

The other problem with the shotgun was that it scared Fraidy to pieces; she wouldn't come to me at all tonight. That was pretty awful but I guess we'll both just have to deal with it. It isn't like I want to have to be responsible for the guns, but if I'm going to feed myself I don't see as I have much choice.

 **May 11** **th** – I wasn't really aiming at him, I swear. I mean I don't think I was, not at first. But he was coming at me, I just wanted himto stop, to go away, to not be able to do what he said he was going to do.

This day … I know I've got to calm down but I am so scared. What if the law finds out? Should I try and report this? What if their friends find out and come after me?

The morning didn't give me a clue as to how this day would go. I got up and Fraidy finally decided I was worth knowing again. I fixed pan biscuits for breakfast but this time with raisins. Right after breakfast I cut grass for the cows from around the house and then picked up some tree trash that had come down in the rain yesterday. I was still sore but not too bad. I went up to the dormer room and tried to decide should I try a rife or one of the hand guns. I settled on a rifle because it said on the paper work that it was a "junior size" model. This was another Remington only this one was a "Rimfire" and had a "bolt action." I went through the whole routine again of checking over all the parts and cleaning the gun before I felt comfortable enough to take it out of the house.

I put the book in my back pocket and put a box of the .22 bullets in a bag I slung across my shoulders. I decided to go to the hayfield to try and spare Fraidy's nerves. When I got up there I took my time and made sure that I was doing everything the way I should. The thing held five bullets and it was loud but didn't have the kick the shotgun did. It was also easier to hold on to. By the fifth bullet I was actually hitting the target … not the center of the target and I wasn't too far away from it but at least I was hitting it. Or at least that is how I felt at the time.

I could blame my APD but that's no excuse. I just wasn't paying attention like I should have been. I was standing there proud that my latest bullets had all hit the target circle that I had drawn on a dead tree when from behind me I heard the high pitched sound of accelerating motorcycles. I turned around just in time to have one of two riders take a swing at me that caught me a glancing blow between the top of my nose and my eyebrow. I'll thank God every day that I didn't freeze 'cause if I had I surely do believe I would have been dog meat.

I don't know where my thinking was coming from but somehow I just knew that if I got into the trees they couldn't go as fast and I might have a chance of doubling around and getting back to the house. If I could get in the house I thought I would be safe. I ran and ran in all sorts of directions but every time I tried to take off in a direction I wanted to go one of them would cut me off. They weren't wearing helmets so I could see that they were laughing at me. The few times I stopped long enough that I was able to read their lips I wish I hadn't; the nasty stuff they were saying was scarier than the guns they were shooting off.

They almost had me when I ran across the utility easement but I ran really close to the edge of the sinkhole and the bike closet to me skidded in. I didn't stop to see what happened, I just kept running. Since the trees didn't slow them down I was hoping the palmettos would. I left the trees and headed up a path between two large and tightly packed patches of palmettos. The path zigged and zagged and I kept running. There was a short straight away and I just knew I was going to be caught. Right after the dirt bike accelerated I guess it hit one of the palmetto roots that run across the surface of the ground; some of them are bigger around than my thigh. The front wheel hit one and it went end over end once and then came down hard. The guy landed and didn't move. I found I was blocked in so would have to go back around the guy to get away.

I snuck by thinking he was playing opossum but his eyes were wide open and the handle bars of his motor bike was lying right across his throat. There was blood coming from the guy's nose and mouth. I was pretty sure he was dead at that point but I wasn't taking any chances. I took the gun that was lying beside him. I didn't want him shooting at me anymore. I ran back into the trees and stopped to listen, trying to hear where the other guy was. I was halfway back across the utility easement when I heard the other guy screaming, "You *****, you killed him!" My heart nearly came out of my chest; it literally felt like someone had hit me with a hammer and my left arm felt tingly like I'd touched an electric fence.

The guy now chasing me hadn't been running all over forty acres trying to get away. And he was fast. I ran as fast as I had the energy left to do and fell on my knees where I had dropped the rifle on the outskirts of the hayfield. I wasn't thinking, only reacting. I tried to load the rifle but I kept dropping the bullets and I couldn't remember exactly what to do with the bolt thingy.

I swear I didn't mean to. It really was an accident. I just wanted him to stop. I heard this loud growl and turned around to see this big guy with crazy eyes running at me and he was pointing a gun at me. I don't remember picking the other guy's gun back up. I really don't. It was just there in my hand. I pulled the trigger and the guy stopped and his face changed from scary to surprised. I honestly just wanted him to stop. I know he was screaming at me but I couldn't hear him and I refused to read his lips. There was a poof in the sand beside me and I realized he had pulled his trigger so I pulled the one in my hand once, twice, a bunch of times … I don't know how many … until the little thing jumped out that said the gun was out of bullets.

He was on the ground and he wasn't moving. I don't know how long I sat there. It must have been a long time because suddenly the sun wasn't high in the sky anymore and the shadows were longer.

I still wasn't thinking right. I can look back at it now and I know I wasn't thinking right. I don't know if I'm thinking right right now. I remember thinking that these guys were just like the other guy that was laying the loblollies. That thought kept running through my head over and over. Then it hit me, those two guys were just like the guy in the loblollies and the same thing would happen to them if I didn't take care of them.

I got the wheelbarrow and moved the bodies just like I moved that guy Rand. I took them deep into the same twenty acres where the other guy but passed what remained of him and dumped the two bodies into the old septic tank where the RV used to park. I don't know where that idea came from, it was just there. I'd be doing one thing one place and then I'd look around and be doing something different in another place, like a DVD that had skips in it. I remember dumping the bodies but I don't remember walking home. I remember looking in the barn and seeing the two motor bikes in there but I don't remember putting them in there. When I completely woke to myself I was planting oak saplings that I must have cut down with the hatchet that was lying on the ground at my feet.

I looked to my left and saw that I had "planted" five of them already. The saplings were taller than I was even cut off like they were. I had shoved the sharp end into the ground so far that it would stand up on its own. I had also run twine from a big tree on one side of the driveway to the house to a tree on the opposite side. The "planted" trees leaned against this twine.

I was confused. I didn't know what I was doing. I'm pretty sure that I was trying to hide the entrance to the drive way up to the house. I may have been crazy when I thought it up but it isn't really a bad idea and I'm going to finish it tomorrow. The house is really hard to spot from our road but camouflaging the drive way that leads back to the house will make it even harder to see. I don't need to get a car through there so it's no big deal.

It was dark when I came to myself, probably because part of me realized it was too dark to work and that I needed to go inside. I locked the barn after putting the hatchet away where it belonged. I was standing on the porch when it hit me. I puked until nothing but bile would come up. Even then I couldn't stop. I wound up belly down on the porch trying to catch my breath. Fraidy came up to me and gave me a nudge like she knew something was wrong but didn't know what to do for me. That helped me to get up on my knees. I crawled to the door, got inside and was finally able to stand up with the help of the entry way table.

I rolled the door down and then stumbled to the kitchen looking for something to drink. The first couple of sips of water didn't want to stay down but the next few did. I came up to the dormer room and switched on the solar lights but when they proved too bright for my mood I turned them back off and turned on the solar lamp and just decided to write it all out, like bleeding off poison. But now the lamp is going out. I still can't sleep. Maybe if I just lay dow ….


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

 **May 14** **th** – I haven't felt much like writing the last couple of days. I probably wouldn't be doing it now except he is doing it; I mean writing on some paper I gave him for in his own journal. I didn't know guys liked to do that but he said he does. I hope he's not just trying to fool me. I don't think he is but you never know.

Nothing has made much sense until today and I'd say today was still on the iffy side. I don't suppose this will make any sense at all if I don't start back where I left off.

I don't know what happened when the lamp ran out of juice on Thursday night because I kind of ran out of juice also. I never made it to the bed. I woke up the next morning on the floor right by the window seat where I had been writing. I could barely move and I was fuzzy headed like you get sometimes when you are sick. The only thing I could think about was getting down the stairs so I could get to the bathroom. I crawled to the stairs and then sat on the top stair and went down on my bottom one at a time. Finally at the bottom I was able to use the stair rail and get up and I limped really fast to the bathroom in my parents' room. Luckily there was enough water left in the five-gallon bucket I keep in there to "flush" with.

When I was able I finally took a good look at myself and the picture I made brought all that had happened the previous day back to me. I had just changed clothes but didn't take a bath. I still had some spots of dried blood on me. My hair was wild and going every which direction and even had a small twig stuck in my braid. My nose hurt and I had a black and swollen eye that was really ugly (still do though it isn't swollen any more). My nose was all stuffed up and that was only from the neck up. My arms looked like I had taken a rust brush to them. My knees were scratched and bruised and my ankles were cut to ribbons.

I thought about taking a bath but knew that I would be working outside as soon as I could get up the nerve to go out the door. Part of me remembered all of those counseling sessions that I had been through about trauma and all that junk. Another part of me kept telling that part of me to just shut up. It was like I had two whole debate teams going on inside me. Taking a bath won. The water was cold so I only stood up in the tub and wet myself down, soaped up, scrubbed and then rinsed off. Took less water that way anyway and I didn't have to sit in the dirt I was washing away. Wish I could have washed away everything else as easily.

I didn't feel like cooking so I made oatmeal honey balls. All that is is rolled oats mixed with enough honey to make them stick together into balls; more of an energy food than a true meal. I like it but it makes you real thirsty and too much will upset your guts.

With breakfast over I went to stand by the front door. It took a lot for me to go outside but I remember the Bible saying "Fear Not!" and stuff like that. I also remember Daddy telling me that caution is good, fear is paralyzing; of course he was talking about dealing with bullies but in a sense this was the same thing. Bullies had tried to hurt me and take away my freedom and maybe my life. If I stayed hiding in the house then the bullies won. It still wasn't easy … it was really Fraidy that finally helped me.

She was sitting on the end of the porch just looking at me like to say, "It's about time you showed up." She would only come so close and then she would walk away to the end of the porch again, teasing like cats can do. I dared myself to go as far as Fraidy and if I was too scared I could turn around 'cause I wouldn't be too far from the house. We played that game for a while and I wound up as far as the barn. Finally I figured if I had made it that far I could do what had to be done.

My "fence" had fallen down during the night. The twine was still there but everything else was on the ground. I was ready to cry again but then I heard the cows mooing and they sounded so pitiful. I picked up a couple of the leafier saplings and carried them over to the fence and they practically jerked them out of my hands. There were only seven cows. I don't know what happened to the other two. I thought maybe someone was taking them away but now I don't know, it might be something else I saw.

I got the swing blade and cut some more grass and threw it over the fence. By that time the sun was straight up overhead so I decided it must be noon. I went back to the house and ate some peanut butter and granola and then made myself drink a glass of milk. I wasn't very hungry, just thirsty, so after the milk I drank a couple glasses of water. Mostly I was thinking … and I admit delaying a bit.

Since the saplings wouldn't stand up my next idea was to try and make a potato vine fence. I took the hatchet and went out in the woods where I knew long thick potato vines grow in the trees. You can just about swing on some of them like Tarzan. In fact I had to climb a couple of trees to cut some down. I drug them home and laid them out. After going to the barn and getting a hammer and nails I nailed the potato vines in horizontally between the two trees on either side of the driveway. Then I took shorter and more flexible sections of potato vine and wove them in vertically. I had to use the ladder to get the highest parts finished but when I was done it looked like a woven lattice, like you see on a pie.

All that did was say "Hey! Look here, I'm trying to hide something!" I took pruning shears and cut some vicious saw brier vines and some scraggly blackberry canes and wove them into the lattice of potato vines. It still didn't look much better but I figured I could plant some honeysuckle or Jessamine on it and it would eventually fill in the gaps and make it look more natural.

All I was trying to do was make the house less noticeable at that point. It was already hidden but I wanted it more hid from the casual observer. The tall grass growing in our road helped and the trees and underbrush grew tightly together all around the remainder of the home site which included the barn, shed, and orchard. The barn is practically invisible as it is set back from the house and the road and surrounded on three sides by a dense growth of oak saplings that grow so close together they are hard to walk through. The orchard I've already described. Behind the house is a big open area but it has a dense canopy and the oak sprouts, blackberry canes, and cactus are beginning to take over in the few places the grass isn't growing. The open area is surrounded by areas that have never seen a tractor or anything else and on the other side of that, what was supposed to be the fire line around the inside of our fenced forty acres, has grown wild and the cedar trees that Momma and I planted on each fence post on that side of the property are now all taller than me though most of them haven't filled out all the way yet; they are tall and skinny. In that quadrant you can't even walk the fence line anymore and the fence itself has disappeared under saw brier vines and moss that falls from the huge water oaks back there. There is plenty of Devil's Walking Sticks back there too that make it dangerous to just push through willy nilly without really heavy clothes on.

So my front entrance is "hidden" and my back is covered and inaccessible except on foot and only then if you know the places you can push through. I tried a few places and the paths have become so overgrown even I have trouble making my way from one side of the bush to the other. I was thinking of clearing the old paths but now I'm not so sure.

By the time I finished that I was sore again, tired, and my black eye was stinging pretty bad where the sweat kept rolling into it. It was late afternoon but there was still plenty of light left. I put my tools away and headed out to the orchard. I saw a whip snake slither away so I was careful. Whip snakes aren't poisonous but they are kind of high strung, you never know if they are going to run away or act big and bad and strike trying to scare you off. The blueberry bushes are pretty well loaded and by the time they are finished ripening I'm going to have a mess of them. This time out there I didn't do much but graze down the rows. Every one that was really ripe I pulled off and ate. By the time I got to the end of the two rows of bushes I must have eaten three or four cupfuls. The whip snake is probably keeping the birds out of the orchard so I'm not too worried. There are going to be more than enough berries for me and them … I hope.

I wasn't real hungry any more but I had enough commonsense to know I couldn't keep going eating the stuff that was easy to grab and didn't require cooking. For one thing that was using up my emergency stash and for another I didn't want to get sick or so weak I couldn't run if I needed to. I built a fire in the pit and as the wood burned to coals I boiled water and prepared a Dutch oven of beans, this time enough for two meals. I put some of the boiling water in my thermos carafes, some in a mug for cocoa, and poured the rest in the bathtub with some more water to cool it off and then dumped in my clothes and underthings from the last couple of days. I had just left them in the middle of the bathroom floor and they had soured and were stinking up the place. Lesson time for me: at least hang the dirty clothes up so they don't sour otherwise I'll be doing a wash load every other day.

I locked things down early. I tried to get Fraidy to come inside but she only blinked at me and went back to sleeping up in one the trees she likes to stay up in like a mountain lion. I left her alone figuring she was turning into a night hunter. I was still really sore and decided I needed to do something about that. I don't like pills much but I was grateful for the acetomenaphine I found in the medicine cabinet.

There was still some daylight so I looked around to see what I could do. That's when I noticed how dirty the house was. Momma would have been ashamed at how it looked. The kitchen wasn't too bad, just needed some minor picking up and putting away of the dishes in the dish drainer, but the great room was a pig sty. There were boxes and junk everywhere from where I was inventorying and then trying to find a place to put everything. I nearly had everything inventoried I just hadn't done a very good job of finding a place to put stuff away. It took me two hours but I got everything neatened and organized.

I was so tired by the time I finished I just went up to the dormer room, undressed and fell across the bed. I'd been a lot better off taking a couple of more pills because when I woke up in the morning I could barely move. It was worse than the day before. I finally got downstairs, dressed, and used the still hot water in the carafes to make instant grits. I wanted another cup of cocoa but the other one had given me a big fat zit on my chin; it hurt almost as bad as my eye did.

I went out and cut grass for the cows and threw some palmetto fronds in there for something different. There were still seven cows thank goodness and to me they looked like they were happier if not too much fatter. At least they were swishing their tails and not just leaving them limp and hanging. They also looked like they had more cow slobber on their noses and mouths. I figure that has to be a good sign.

Yesterday I was so sore that I decided to work around the house instead of going off all over the place. I was glad to have my meals and cooking already taken care of. And I knew I needed to do something about getting better with the guns. I had gotten lucky, or my guardian angel had been looking after me, but I'm pretty sure it was the noise of me practicing that brought those two men snooping around. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about that even though today I kept getting nudges to just get out and do it. I wish He would stop it.

It was work but I finished inventorying everything left in the barn and bringing it into the house. Putting it away wasn't as fun mostly because I am realizing as much storage as the house has, there still isn't enough. I need more book cases upstairs in the bonus rooms; I've got a lot of reading books just piled in stacks against the wall. I don't have enough hangers so I divided the clothes up into different closets (like all the jeans in one, all the t-shirts in another, etc.) and what I couldn't hang up I folded and just put on the closet floor. I'm using my parents' bedroom furniture for socks, under things, night clothes, and stuff like that. I don't have enough cabinets to put away all Momma's sewing stuff like patterns, material, and all the other odds and ends.. There are also things I don't have enough of like pens and pencils, writing paper, and the sorts of things you don't realize you need until you need it and you can't make it yourself.

I was wondering where I could put all of the office supplies I do have when I decided to take it up to the dormer room except for a small supply I put in the coffee table drawer. Those cabinets and drawers that Daddy built up there were mostly empty and I figured that is as good a place for that stuff as any. Also managed to get most of the boxes and bags emptied that were left from Momma and Daddy's stuff. I'm not sure what to do with all of my brother's clothes and toys; it hurts to think about it. Most of it I just left in boxes stacked in a corner upstairs. I finally found all the photo albums and photo boxes but I haven't been able to look at them yet; it's like with Brother's stuff, it's still too hard.

Also managed to start a bean stew for my food the next day; again to save my matches. My bean stew isn't exactly like Aunt Wilma's because she cooked hers in a crock pot but I figured – and was right – that the slow cooking the beans did in the ground was just about the same thing. I put in some dried chopped onion, dried chopped garlic, some paprika, a half-cup each of four different dried beans (I used pinto, white, kidney, and black), seven cups of water, a bay leaf, a little bit of dill weed, salt, pepper, a bouillon cube, and a handful of dried potato chunks.

I did the whole routine – boiled water while the coals were making, yada, yada, yada.

I went to sleep thinking, "Now that wasn't so bad. You got over it a lot easier than you thought." I got up this morning kicking myself for the jinx.

I dreamed all last night. I kept waking up to the sound of gunfire in my ears and everything going red. Then just before the sky started getting some color to it I said to heck with it and just got up. I'd sweated through my sheets last night which meant another load of laundry. All this was made worse when I looked at the calendar and realized that today was Mother's Day. That took my appetite away.

My soreness wasn't quite so bad but I still took a pill. I learned in the hospital that sometimes it was just better to take your medicine than to try and be tough and prolong the agony. I tried really hard not to look in the mirror as I cleaned up. I was a mess. My eye still looked bad. My nose wasn't really swollen any more but that wasn't much of an improvement. The zit on my chin wasn't the size of Mt. Vesuvius any more but that wasn't saying too much either. It seems I can't get a break. It's not like I have any reason to be vain of my looks. If I had been inclined the wreck would have taken care of that. I have scars all over. Some of them are little tiny things that no one notices but me. But I'll never wear a two-piece bathing suit. It would have been kinder had they just put a zipper on me from my chest to my belly button. The scars on my legs aren't too bad but every once in a while someone would ask me why they looked like they'd been beat up by a weed whacker. I had a lot of surgeries to put me back together. I even have scars on my back but those aren't very noticeable 'cause they are down low … but I never will wear low rider jeans either.

I pulled myself back together and tried to stop feeling sorry for myself; it's not like anyone will ever see those scars but me since I don't have to go to the doctors any more. As far as I know there aren't any doctors around even if I didn't need to go to one.

I had granola with milk and realized I would need to make my own granola before too long the way I was eating it but I have honey and oats and there has to be a recipe in Momma's books that I can use. It was still just half way light when I went to check on the cows. The grass was still too wet to cut but I figured I could give them some palmettos to tide them over. When I got to the usual place I throw the grass over I didn't understand why they were all bunched up against the fence until I saw what I think might be getting the cows. I'm still not for sure though.

There were about two dozen of them trotting in a straight line across the field. That Rottweiler looking one (or its twin) was with them. All of them were big and most were the kind of dogs that can be scary … Doberman, pit, Rottweiler, German shepherd, and mixes of those breeds. Not one of them was a small dog. No way do I want to run into a dog pack. He might not be able to convince me to carry a gun because of more bad guys – I'd just try and avoid people like that – but I might just do it for those dogs. A man I can run from but I wouldn't get two steps before those dogs were all over me. I had already experienced that when that Rottweiler tried to get in at me at the first house I was salvaging from.

There were still seven cows and it wasn't until the dogs moved through and away that they unfroze and started milling about. They were happy to see me … or cow happy anyway. I can't pretend it's really me they want to see, it's the grass and stuff I bring to them.

I was tempted to sit down and mope but I knew I had to go get my sheets and get them washed before they ruined the mattress. I had a mattress pad on the bed but it needed washing too. I dumped them in the tub and poured water over them and stepped on them a little bit to get them soaked and then started the laundry routine I had developed. While the sheets soaked I went to pick up more wood and brought back a bunch of broken branches that were about as long as my leg and big around as my wrist. A tree had blown over at some point in the past and was so brittle in places I could rip the smaller stuff off without too much effort.

I am piling the wood in the barn but I guess I'm going to need a lot more wood than what I've got before the cold weather gets here. It doesn't snow but I remember it could get pretty darn cold compared to Tampa. But working on the idea of how to get more wood and where to put it also helped me to think of a possible solution to the lack of matches. A magnifying glass.

I went back to the house, cut grass for the cows, washed up, and hung out the sheets. It was a pain to wring the water out enough that I could get them out of the house without making a mess. Then I set to experimenting on starting a fire using the magnifying glass. To make it easier on myself I decided to go get some sappy pine needles to experiment with. Where all the loblollies grew over the fence on Magnolia Drive, there was a thick carpet of them. In my mind I was also using this as a justification for walking back down my road to the gully area. I wanted to prove to myself I wasn't chicken, that the bullies wouldn't keep me from going anywhere on my own property that I wanted to.

While I was up there I stepped into the dense pines to take a bathroom break. When I came out a wagon pulled by a couple of big mules was coming down my road from CR49. There were also two guys on horseback. When they saw me the guys on horseback galloped towards me. I panicked. I admit it. I just dropped the pine needles and ran.

All I could hear was the pounding of the horses' hooves. I didn't even realize someone was calling my name. The horse overtook me easily and got in front of me. The guy jumped off his horse and grabbed me. I was kicking and trying to get away and then he shook me pretty hard. I drew back to try and poke him in the eye when I finally realized who it was but it took me another second to focus on what he was saying.

"Hey kid, take it easy. I'm not going to hurt you. Hey, don't you recognize me? It's Ra … Whoa! What the heck? What happened to you?"

He said some other things but when he finally let go of one of my arms I nearly fell down I was shaking so bad. I heard Rand shout, "Laurabeth! No … the rest of y'all stay over there a sec. Uncle George can you give me a hand please?"

I was already realizing I'd made an embarrassing mistake but when the young woman Rand called Laurabeth put her arm around me and started talking to me like I was a frightened little kid I felt even worse. I tried to tell her I was OK but my teeth were chattering so bad that I had to scrunch them together hard and could only shake or nod my head in response to her questions of whether I was OK or not.

I was still shaking pretty bad but I finally got my teeth under control and was able to answer their questions better. They didn't ask me much except to make sure that I was all in one piece. Uncle George said, "I apologize for dropping in like this but Rand wanted to check on you and to share some information with you we came by in church this morning." He hemmed and hawed a bit more after I apologized back for not recognizing them. No one was saying much of anything until Laurabeth came over again and the Rand and his uncle walked back to the wagon like they were checking things over.

Laurabeth is nineteen years old and has that auburn color of hair most people have to use a bottle to get. She was also a lot nicer than I expected after the way I acted. She said, "Um, look, what Dad and Rand would like to ask but they don't want to upset you again is what happened. Will you tell me and I can tell them? Um … did someone … ?"

Nice people. They just can't bring themselves to walk by without trying to help. She was giving me time to think about it but I figured if the Jew could stand to be helped by the Samaritan then I could stand to be helped by Rand and his family. Sometimes you've gotta look at things from the other side. I wasn't sure what they were going to do to me but it was for sure they weren't going to just walk away until they made sure I was OK so I gave in as gracefully as I could.

I told the story to Uncle George except I left out everything about the shooting practice. He wanted to know if I was telling him everything and at first I thought he had somehow figured out I had left out the rifle but when I looked at his face it was all red and Rand looked a little green around the gills. Laurabeth put her arm around me and ask what I guess they had been wondering all along. "Did those two men … hurt you … you know … "

Oh. They thought … well, it was pretty obvious what they thought given how I looked and the way I panicked. I promised them the men hadn't though I admitted they'd pretty much been promising that was going to happen once they caught me.

Uncle George and Rand went to go check where I had dumped the bodies leaving everyone else with the horses and wagons. While they were away Laurabeth introduced me to everyone that was left. The other horse was being ridden by a young man named Jonathon. He was Laurabeth's fiancé and two years older than Rand and built a lot thicker though he wasn't fat at all. I recognized Mick who was holding the big mules still so they wouldn't walk away with the wagon. In the bed of the wagon were two girls. The older of the two girls was named Charlene and she was my age, though a couple of months younger. The younger one was named Janet; she was fourteen with hair so blonde it was almost white and very frail looking.

We had all been standing around not quite knowing what to say when Uncle George and Rand came back out of the loblollies.

"Young lady, you had an angel watching over you," Uncle George said gently.

I told him I knew that but what came next turned things upside down. Rand explained that the reason they had come over to begin with was because they had announced at church that tomorrow was the next "work for food" opportunity. How this works is that normally every other work day they alternate by last name - one is for people whose last name begins with A through M, and then the next is for people whose last name begins with N through Z. Each person who shows up and gives a full day of work for whatever project is organized gets a box of food stuff. They've been doing it for about four months this way. This time however they are asking one person from every family to come regardless of last name, but only one person from each family.

Rand explained, "You were asking me why there weren't cars lined up along the road up this way like there are in other places, this is why. We were having work days very regularly there for a while but there hasn't been one for three weeks. You would count as the one from your family."

I opened my mouth to say something but closed it and nodded instead. Uncle George said, "Honey, none of us are so rich we can afford to look a gift horse in the mouth. There's no need for them to know you are the only person in your family. You do have something with the address for this place, a utility bill or something?"

I told him that "yes, sir" I did – and I do. I have some legal correspondence with my dad's name on it made out to this address.

But then they started trying to manage me. Uncle George told me he'd feel better if Rand stayed here for the night, like he did before, and escort me to the meet up point and then keep an eye on me during the work day. My opinion of that must have showed because he sorta smiled and said, "I know Little Miss Stubborn but look at it this way. Rand stays here with the horse. In the morning you can ride double and get there faster, plus it will be faster for him to start out from here rather than from our place. You get someone to teach you the ropes and next time maybe you don't need anyone's help. He'll be able to introduce you to the right people and I feel better knowing that you won't be trying to figure things on your own. How's that?"

I just gave in. He's too nice to stay mad at. They "took their leave" never even going back to the house. They needed to get back to their place, Brendon had stayed home to look after things and if they didn't show up soon he'd worry and might come looking for them.

Rand rode to the gate with them, shut it, and then came back to where I was standing. "Does it really bother you? I can sleep outside … "

I rolled my eyes at him because he was being a doof and totally not getting it. I told him Fraidy liked him and I'd dealt with enough foster boys that I could tell a good 'un from a bad 'un but that I didn't like being managed like I was helpless. When I just started walking he shook his head and followed. It bothers me that he thinks I'm some kind of cause he needs to work on.

I slowed down when we approached the house and thankfully he didn't have anything awful to say about my trellis fence. He didn't ask why just said that I'd need to watch the ends in case they split when he saw I'd used nails to attach them to the trees. I led him and his horse through the brush and then just kind of stood there not knowing what to do next. Rand was letting me take the lead which was kind of nice but I didn't know what to do until his stomach growled. His face got red and I couldn't help it, I laughed; the first time in days.

I left him taking care of Hatchet – that's the name of his horse – and went to take care of lunch. I'm glad I fixed as much as I did. Instead of having two or three meals for me we split the whole thing between us for lunch. Rand acted like he liked the bean stew and asked how I had it fixed so fast. I showed him the cooking pit and he looked at me and then asked me if I would write the directions down so he could give them to Laurabeth.

He asked me what I did all day by myself. I told him about picking up wood and cutting grass for the cows. I asked him what he did all day with people underfoot and he laughed and told me about helping his uncle with the animals, the garden, and all the stuff that has to be done on a farm. We were running out of things to talk about when the cows mooed so we walked over that direction to have something to do. He agreed that the cows looked pretty pathetic but they seemed frisky enough when I threw over some palmettos.

While Rand was playing tug with one of the cows with a palmetto frond I asked him some things that I'd been wondering about. Did he know if the cows belonged to anyone? Who did all the other properties around belong to and were people still living there? What would the law have to say about what I'd done to those two men?

"Well, when you start talking you really start talking don't you," he grinned.

After a moment where he looking like he was wondering how to answer me he smiled sadly and told me that I wasn't to worry about what I had done to those men. The gangs … and they were the only ones that rode motorcycles around here … had done a lot of killing, stealing and had hurt a lot of people. The law wouldn't have anything to say about it because there wasn't really any law around here anymore. "That's why Mr. Harbinger and his 'community volunteers' have been tolerated even thought not everyone agrees with the way they've been handling things lately." He told me that I'd defended myself against deadly force so even had there been lawmen nothing worse than what had already happened would have occurred.

I was trying to think about there not being any police when he went on to tell me the property the cows were on was part of a big estate. "Mr. Duval Sr. died during the first round of flu and his kids and ex-wives were fighting it out in court because he hadn't made a more recent will that included his last set of kids that he had had with his fifth wife." Rand laughed at the look on my face. "Yeah, the old guy was crazy, for a fact. I used to earn extra money for school by working as a field hand at some of his different properties. Uncle George didn't have much good to say about him but like everyone else Mr. Duval wasn't all bad. He sure paid better than what I could have gotten bagging groceries at Winn Dixie." Rand said if no one was taking care of the cows they were abandoned property.

I was going to ask him more about "abandoned property" when he went on to tell me there was a family two properties over and across CR49. "I don't know them that well except for Momma O. Her husband was my 8th grade Sunday School teacher but he's dead now. Her daughter and son-in-law live with her these days and from what I understand her grandsons help keep things running. They're both older than me by a few years."

He went on to tell me the only other people that he knew down this stretch of CR49 were the Hendersons and they had a big dairy and grain sorghum operation. "They are one of the few independents around here that still have fuel and apparently they have a lot of it. They keep to themselves pretty much. When things started getting really bad they moved some trailers onto their land and their hired hands moved there with their families. You won't see them much unless there is a big county-wide meeting."

When I asked what had happened to everyone else he got solemn and told me that some people had died of the fourth wave of flu, some folks had died because they couldn't get their medication any more, the gangs murdered a lot of folks before people started killing them right back. "It wasn't any one single thing. The population has just been chipped away bit by bit. Every family will have a different story to tell. They aren't bad people, they just don't tolerate strangers well right now."

I got a little more daring and asked him what exactly "abandoned property" meant. He explained that when food and stuff had gotten short around here the local authorities issued a statement that Chapter 705 of the Florida Statutes would be enforced. "Everyone has read that chapter backwards and forwards around here. Basically it states any property left unclaimed or uncared for more than ten days is considered abandoned property and can be claimed by other people. Yeah, I know that is stretching the law so far it's in danger of breaking. I think it was just a justification for what people were doing to survive. The Feds have something similar going called 'redistribution of resources.' We haven't had any trouble with the Feds around here though you hear about it sometimes through the rumor mill. "

He said if I didn't see anyone take care of the cows for ten days I could take them for my own but if the legal owner did come looking for them after that I might have to turn them over. "No law these days but most everyone tries to do the right thing. As puny as these cows look I don't think you have anything to worry about. But why would you want them and where would you put them?"

I shrugged. I figure I have another week before I have to decide that. Then I asked him about houses. "You talking about this house? Yeah, if anyone had known it was back here they probably could have taken it and no one thought anything of it but if you showed up and there had been someone living here and you could have proven ownership in some way then they would have been expected to move out and give it back. At least that is the way it is supposed to work. But something tells me you aren't asking about this house."

He's patient, I'll give him that. The way he listens you feel almost forced to answer. I finally told him what I had done at the four houses that I had "salvaged" from. He asked if I would show him where they were and while we walked to the first one – he kept his rifle with him the whole time – he told me that I was lucky if I had found one abandoned house that hadn't been completely emptied much less four. "Some of those early work days we spent going house to house and hanging up public notices stating that if no living relative (they needed proof of kinship) stepped forward then the goods within the house would be collected and redistributed to those in need. We got more than a few bodies out of some of those houses too. It was a terrible job."

We only went in the fourth one and I could tell Rand had done this before. He seemed to know all the places to look and what to look for. When he asked me if I minded if he took a few things out I asked him why I should mind. "Finders keepers." I sighed and rolled my eyes at him again … he makes me want to do that a lot … and he smiled and grabbed a bag and took a coat, two pairs of shoes and some of the other guy things that were in the tractor bedroom. I found some more pens and pencils all rubberbanded together in a desk that was sitting in the den and Rand and I split them along with the stack of writing tablets that was in one of the desk drawers.

At least now I don't have to feel quite so bad about taking things from those houses. Rand said that to his knowledge no one had any claim on any of them. "I don't see any public notices so this house might have been missed; I don't know about those other houses since you said that had all the food removed. One of the gangs could have done it too I suppose."

As we walked back to the house Rand got quiet. I knew that quiet. It's the lack of sound that comes right before someone tells you something that they don't think you are gonna like hearing. Sure enough Rand wants me to keep the fact that I'm all on my own here to myself, to lie if I have to. He didn't even want me to tell his girlfriend who was going to be there with us tomorrow. "Julia would probably be on your side – I know she would – but her brother is a big mouth and if he finds out it'll be all over. And I hate to say it but he's friends with the Harbingers and I don't think you want that kind of attention. Plus people talk … me staying here with you and no one else around … well, people can be nasty minded."

I know about people talking but it is pretty rude for people to assume that just because I'm letting Rand help me a little bit that that would mean that I'd put up with anything else. When I told him so he laughed all the way back to the house. "You remind me of Missy."

When I asked him who Missy was he said she was Uncle George's daughter from his first marriage. She got a little wild when she was a teenager and Uncle George who was raising her let her go live with her maternal grandparents. "She's funny. She works the big supply depot they put in at the Lake City Municipal Airport. That's where a lot of stuff that is gathered on the work days is sent for redistribution. No one messes with Missy; she'll put you in your place real quick. But at the same time, if she considers you a friend watch out … you won't be able to ditch her. If you think Uncle George and I are trying to manage you, Missy is even worse … but she means well."

I knew I needed to think about dinner but when I asked him he said he wasn't going to hog all of my supplies and that he was still full from the bean stew. I thought about telling him that I had plenty but I figure that information is no one's business but my own. Rand may be nice but I haven't known him long to trust him that far yet.

While Rand went off to check on Hatchet again I went out to the orchard and low and behold it looks like I am really going to have to start picking the berries for real pretty soon. I ran back to the house and grabbed a small bucket and went back to the blueberry bushes and picked a bunch. I knew exactly what to fix that Rand wouldn't be able to fret about … blueberry dumplings.

"Knock, knock." I turned around real quick to find Rand at the gate. I know I've written that Rand makes me want to roll my eyes a lot but it bears repeating. He came in and looked around. "You've got way more fruit here than you can eat fresh. We have a farmer's market planned for next Saturday and you could probably bring some of these and trade for something else if you want. You'll still have a lot going to waste though and that's a shame. These trees look like they are setting up really nice."

I snorted, not falling for it. I'd dealt with way too many therapist to fall for that kind of information gathering. I told him I knew how to can the fruit. "Maybe I'll trade you in on one of my cousins." When I asked if they'd ever really had to cook or preserve food before now he said, "No Granny. Uncle George took care of everything after Aunt Rachel died. I think it was his way of trying to work through his grief. They are learning now though. At least they don't burn the water anymore."

When his stomach growled again I gave him a handful of berries and asked him what he thought of dumplings for dinner.

Dumplings are so easy. I made them all the time at Good Eats. You just make a soft dough and then dump clumps of it in something boiling until they are cooked through. Stew with dumplings, soup with dumplings, vegetables with dumplings but one of my favorites is stewed fruit with dumplings. I washed and picked over the blueberries to make sure that there weren't any bugs and then I put two cups of water for every pint of fruit I planned to use on to boil. When the water boiled I added the fruit and enough sugar to sweeten everything and continued to boil the water and fruit until a syrup formed. Then you drop rounded spoonfuls of dough into the boiling fruit and syrup and cook for about ten minutes.

Gosh it was so good. Rand nearly licked the silver off of his spoon trying to get the last bit. He's cool in a dopey big brother kind of way. A couple of the foster boys had been like that too though most of them had just been plain trouble.

Rand had intended on picketing Hatchet under a tree for the night but when I told him about the dogs he asked if I minded him going in the barn. There will be horse poo to clean up tomorrow but I'd rather do that than worry about him getting eat up all night.

We got to one of those awkward nobody-knows-what-to-say moments again and that's when he asked if I minded telling him about those men again. I did mind but I figured he wasn't asking me to be mean so I told him. Then he looked at me and asked me why I had been in the hayfield and what I had been doing that I hadn't heard the motorcycles before they were right on top of me. I explained about my APD but he just kept waiting. That's when I told him about the rifle … not about anything else, just the rifle.

I expected him to lecture me or be upset I hadn't told him before but all he said was, "Look, I understand that this is your house and whatever is here is yours. To be honest, one of these days I hope to have a place of my own; I have to have one if Julia's dad is ever going to take me seriously. I'm just telling you so that you'll know that I really do understand; but there are things that are easier to learn and to do with help. I want to help, to pay you back for not leaving me to die in that gully, but it's harder for me to do that if you don't trust me."

I want to trust the guy although he's looney if he thinks he has to pay me back. However I didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him he sure was asking a whole lot so instead I got the rifle out of the coat closet (the doorway to the dormer room hidden behind coats) and brought it to him. He looked the gun over and told me that I needed to keep the barrel wiped down and he gave me a few more pointers and pestered me about practicing some more. He said if I worried about the sound of gunfire drawing the attention of the gangbangers then maybe I could pick a spot away from the house … like over by one of the abandoned houses.

Then he asked if I had tossed the gangbangers guns into the septic tank. I told him they were out in the barn with the motorcycles. He told me he'd look at them tomorrow and see what kind of bullets they used … I told him the bullets that were in their pockets were out there too. It was his turn to roll his eyes. "Locked in the barn is not doing you a bit of good. I'm not saying you have to wear a gun on each hip and carry a bazooka but you need to know how to defend yourself." I told him I'd give it some thought.

This time the quiet was better, the friendly kind where you are talked out but it's OK 'cause the other person is talked out too. That's when he asked what I did at night and I told him that sometimes I wrote in my journal. Then he told me about his journal and he asked if I minded if he wrote while there was still a little light left. He said that he shared a room with Brendon so didn't have a lot of privacy and the house was rarely quiet until everyone went to bed.

So that's what we've been doing and that's why, even though I have company, I've been able to write this all down. The only other thing we've really talked about was that we'd need to take our own canteens and eating utensils for tomorrow. Apparently they provide a mid-day meal of sorts, and that they have a truck of potable water, but not cups, plates or spoons. I got out a couple of plastic bowls and a spoon for each of us and two ruck sacks to carry them in. Rand already had his own canteen with him.

The light is gone and I'm finishing up this last paragraph by moonlight. I'll have to be up extra early tomorrow so that I can feed the cows before we leave but that's OK. Best of all, I'm going to get to ride a horse tomorrow!


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

 **May 15** **th** \- I remember this debate case statement we were given for one of our matches: "Disasters bring out the best in people/Disasters bring out the worst in people." The teams stalemated every time because the burden of proof for both statements was so easy to come up with. I think it's because the truth is that it is both. I certainly saw that today.

Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday that I now have a working clock and pocket watch. Rand said the time might be off by five or ten minutes either way but no one is paying it that close attention right now. I had set the alarm for 4:45 but Rand still woke up ahead of me without a clock to go by. I woke up when I heard him moving around in the bathroom, bumping into things 'cause of the dark.

I guess I hadn't noticed yesterday that Rand had shaved for church. But this morning he was scratching his face like it itched. He noticed me noticing him doing that and he got a little red but explained that he only bothered shaving on Sundays now and it itched for a day afterwards. At least I could cover up my hairy legs with jeans. Guys have to leave their faces hanging out all the time. So maybe guys have some junk they have to put up with too … I still don't think it is fair they don't have to put up with the monthlies but I don't guess there is anything I can do about that.

I found out something about Rand that is not too cool. He's a morning person. He's a happy morning person. He talks in the morning … a lot. Ugh. He just laughed at me and said Laurabeth and I have something in common … poor Laurabeth if she has had to put up with this happy morning person every morning for years. I looked in my match box and I'm down to about a dozen matches. I took one out only to find Rand ahead of me making a fire in the grill for coffee. I asked him how he had known where the matches were … my way of checking to see if my short term memory was on the fritz or if he had been snooping … and he showed me this thing he called Bob.

I told him I thought guys only named their cars and I thought he was going to laugh so hard he was going to choke or something. I didn't get the joke – and still don't really think it is funny if you want to know the truth so it must be a guy thing. He explained that he didn't mean "Bob" but B-O-B which stands for a "bug out bag." It's basically some kind of emergency kit he carries in a tool belt kind of thing on his hip. I thought it was where he kept his bullets but he showed me that it is really full of a bunch of odds and ends for emergencies in case he gets caught away from home. He suggested I make one for myself even if I was just walking around my property because he said his had been dead useful on more than one occasion, especially the first aid stuff. I might do that. I can always stick it in a purse or something that I can sling across my shoulders.

I don't like being laughed at, especially not that early in the morning, but he didn't do it to be mean so I didn't burn his oatmeal. That's what I fixed for breakfast because I swear Rand's stomach talks almost as much as he does. He was kind of easy taking the first few bites but then he really went to town. He asked what it was and I told him oatmeal. He said that it wasn't oatmeal 'cause they have oatmeal all the time at his house and it didn't taste like what I fixed. I said then he wasn't having oatmeal because what I fixed was oatmeal. He shut up for a couple of minutes and then said I was probably right because Laurabeth and Charlene were the ones that fixed it. There is no way his cousins can be as bad at cooking as he makes them out to be. I think he is just being silly on purpose.

I put a nosebag of some granola and dried fruit in with the plastic bowls and utensils we carried just in case we didn't get fed like Rand expected we would. Now I'm glad I did. It was just barely gray when we left the house. Rand took care of Hatchet and scooped the poop and I went and cut some grass for the cows. They were bunched up against the fence again and I could just barely see the dogs crossing the field in the early morning mist. I turned to see Rand watching the dogs too.

He said the dogs must have built themselves a den somewhere nearby if I've seen them cross the pasture twice the same way in the early morning. He handed me one of the guns that the gangbangers used and told me to put it in my bag along with the bullets. He said the gun was called a Hi-Point or something like that and that it uses 9mm bullets. He said that he'd ask his Uncle George who the best contact would be for 9mm ammo and what they would take in trade. I didn't tell him I already had a bunch for obvious reasons and 'cause I know he's just trying to help but he ruined it by saying, "The gun isn't loaded. I don't want you shooting your foot off. I'll show you how to load and fire it before the day is over with." I felt like hitting him with the handle of the swing blade. For a nice guy he can be very irritating.

I forgave him though once we finally started to the meet up point because he let me ride Hatchet. I've never ridden a horse before today except for once for not even a minute at Girl Scout camp. It's like sitting on top of a barrel, a barrel with really long legs. We rode double and I didn't know how to hold on until he said I could hold his belt loops like Janet does if I wanted to. That helped. I didn't feel like I was going to fall off quite so much. I have to say even though it was fun my backside isn't too happy right now. It was OK to the meet up place but coming home was another story. I felt like I've been bouncing up and down on a hard bleacher seat for hours.

Turns out the meet-up place was the big parking lot in front of Walmart. We took US90 to US129 where we turned north almost until we got to interstate 10. Or maybe I should say the parking lot of what used to be a Walmart; it's nothing but a burned out mess now. In fact most of the buildings along US129 into Live Oak are like that, even the big church on the corner. Rand told me it was because refugees came off of the interstate and almost wiped the town out. "It was like a Biblical plague of locusts. It was even worse than a lot of the big city riots they were showing on television. The town lost four deputies in as many days. Was a bad time around here, not many people dared leave their homes because when the stores emptied people would barge right into houses looking for whatever they thought they needed. The farms around here were hit really hard; luckily there aren't any field crops near the interstate, most of that is way back to 49 and 252 and into Gilchrist and Lafayette counties. Columbia got hit pretty hard and so did Alachua because of I75."

We were early, it wasn't even 7 AM yet, but there were people ahead of us. The sign in line was already several yards long. About then a girl rode up with some other people and Rand's face lit up and he jogged over to help the girl down. I didn't exactly need to be Einstein to figure out this was Julia. In addition to the smooch, Rand had this really dorky look on his face like half his brains had trickled out of his ears. It was really hard not to laugh.

The girl seemed nice enough. I expected a girlfriend type person to be more bent out of shape about me hanging around but she wasn't. We got in line together and I found out she was a morning person too. Ugh. The line moved pretty fast until it was my turn. Rand and Julia had already been assigned to a road work crew together since they both had horses but I had to fill out a form and we got separated. I could see Rand starting to go all fuss-budget until a woman showed up and spoke to him. He left with a wave and a thumbs up.

The woman came over to me and I could see she was twenty-something and had the same white-blonde hair color hair as Janet and Uncle George. I was meeting the infamous Missy. And Missy is most definitely cool. She got me through all the forms and proof of residency stuff without me having to lie about anything. We went over to a bunch of trailers and she said, "No favoritism even if you do know my dad. You'll work your butt off or I'll send you home."

I was on the crew that made up the food boxes for people who finished their work day. Missy told me, "Cut off for each work day's sign up is 8:00 am because all crews are expected to be working no later than 8:30. We are supposed to get a final number no later than 9:00 am and that's when our work will really start. We take the number of people that sign in and divvy up what food supplies we have as fairly as possible. Thankfully we don't have to do a bunch of individuals this time but family boxes instead. With individuals you wind up having to do the math down to quarter pounds and lower sometimes to make sure everyone gets exactly the same amount."

I like math and didn't understand the fuss until I actually had to start doing it. Missy … or Ms. Crenshaw as I had to call her when other people were around … took the inventory and divided it up. "I wish we could take into account whether someone is single or whether they have a family to feed but the logistics of that would be a nightmare. The only way to make it as fair as possible is that everyone that works gets the same share. Once people start bringing their work ticket up to the table, and that won't happen until after 4:00 pm, I want you to stay back until our guard gets in place. If things get too wild I may ask you to go sit in one of the trucks until Rand comes to pick you up. We have had a little trouble at the last two stops along this route. People don't like the amount or what they're getting … or they start trading with each other which causes a lot of confusion."

I thought of what my Kindergarten teacher used to tell us, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." Seems to me that some so-called adults need to learn that.

Until the numbers came Missy had us getting organized. We set up a bunch of tables and each table had four or five red lines dividing it up. Each of us on the work crew had our own table. We were expected to make up four or five food boxes at a time; I got the only table that had six divisions on it. I saw some of the other women on the crew smirking so I figured something was up. Ended up fooling them. Having to fill six boxes at a time actually made the work go faster. Right at 8:45 the numbers were turned in; 256 people signed up in time.

Missy did the math and then turned to us and smiled really big. "Good news, we've got enough that all we have to do is break it down into pounds and half-pounds this time. But ladies, I've had a little trouble with people trying to put the 'good stuff' in their own family's pile. That won't be happening again, not on my watch. From here on out, preparers will not be distributors. Depot staff will distribute and we'll be monitoring to make sure nothing shifty is going on. And you can get the look off your face Doris Vayne; I really don't care what you think about this change. If it isn't to your liking you can leave and go on home."

"Doris" was one of the women who had been smirking; she wasn't smirking any more. Missy wasn't finished however. "The other change is that canned foods and convenience items are being reserved for Special Populations such as the folks at the hospital, the nursing homes, and most of you should know who else. There are still a few but mostly what we have today is commodities including grains, sweeteners, dried vegetables, powdered milk, and the like. We are out of tobacco and coffee and I'm not sure when we will be getting any more in. Since about half as many people showed up as expected it looks like we have an abundance of paper products to hand out which should make up for that some. Anyone with questions about these changes can see me at the end of your shift. Now, let's get to it."

Rand wasn't kidding; Missy managed people pretty good. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Missy had everything down to a science. The only thing was trying to not make a mess with the loose stuff and making sure that everything was measured correctly. There were bins of wheat (not flour but the whole grain), cornmeal, dried fruit, dried veggies, white sugar, brown sugar, powdered milk, mixed nuts in the shell, sunflower seeds in the shell, salt, pepper, baking soda, baking powder, and some spices and stuff. Another truck held paper goods like toilet paper, Kleenex, feminine products. The third truck was the "wet" supplies and it was the biggest mess. There was honey, molasses, and cane syrup. There were oils like corn, safflower, and olive. And then there were vinegars and other liquid flavorings. The last pile was a crate of miscellaneous odds and ends.

Missy came over and got me started since I was the only one that had never worked the supply crew. She walked me through scooping the staple goods into paper bags and making sure they weighed the correct amount. Showed me how one type of dried fruit was used until it was all gone then they opened the next bin and used it until it was all gone. That meant that even if the truck held five different types of dried fruit, each food allotment only contained one type. Same with the dried veggies. There were plastic containers that the "wet" items went into and once they were filled they were taped securely closed. The paper goods were doled out by some of Missy's regular staff. Then each food box was given one item from the miscellaneous crate … could be anything from a package of cookies to packets of Kool aide to a box of baby wipes.

Once I had six sets of stuff on my table I took a large burlap bag and carefully piled everything in the bag and then sewed it shut with a big upholstery needle and raffia string. Missy said it didn't have to be neat, it just needed to be knotted tightly closed to remind people to wait to start looking in their bag and going through it until after they had gotten it home.

When I asked Missy where all the paper bags and burlap bags and plastic containers came from she told me there were drop stations ahead of each work day. For every paper bag or plastic container turned in people would get an extra credit in their ration books; every burlap bag turned in would get them three. "It doesn't add up to much if you think about it but it's an incentive to get people to recycle them which takes the burden off of our station to requisition containers." The ration book is a new one on me and I forgot to ask Rand about it in the melee that happened later.

A little after four o'clock people started coming in with these stamped and dated cards. No one is supposed to know the card color ahead of the work day so that they can't be counterfeited and each crew chief is assigned a different shaped punch that is used for additional security. The people go up to the first line, their card is checked against their sign in information, if it matches they get a hand stamp and then go into the line where they can pick up their bag. If the card, color, punch or any part doesn't match what was written down at sign in then they have to wait for it to be cleared up, however long that takes.

I didn't think it was going to be work but it really was. There were 256 civilian "volunteers." There were six of us preparers. That meant each of us were supposed to prepare about 42 bags of food. For me that meant I had to do seven tables of six bags each. Wowzer. Between 9:00 am and when the first group started to trickle through I had made up 35 bags but then things got crazy and I lost count.. It reminded me of the dinner rush at Good Eats.

I saw Rand and Julia go through and he told me he'd be back to pick me up when Missy punched my ticket. It was a guy in the last crew to come in that turned everything nasty. Basically he started shouting because he had a family and some of the other guys who were single were getting the same amount. The single guys said it wasn't fair when families got so much more for the same amount of work. A couple of the men started to brawl and then things got out of control.

Missy was one of the first to go down. She had her back to the crowd and was trying to get her crew and staff up into the trucks so they wouldn't get hurt when the brawlers ran into the distribution tables and Missy disappeared under a table and a bunch of other people. That's when I heard whistles blowing but by that time lots of people were fighting and not all of them were men.

I ducked down by the wheels of one of the semi trailers and tried to stay out of the mess. I spotted Missy trying to crawl away from the broken tables but every time she tried to get upright she'd get knocked back over. I could see blood on her face already and knew if she didn't get out of there she could get trampled to death. I looked around for some help but all the adults were either running away from the fight or running to it.

I grabbed a couple of cans from the Miscellaneous Crate and dumped them in a burlap bag and started making my way over to Missy. When people started getting too close I'd swing the bag. If they were smart they moved. If they weren't smart they got smacked by a load of cans in the back or gut and that moved them. When I got to Missy she wasn't moving much but it was all I could do to keep people from stepping on her any more. I couldn't bend down and help her.

About that time some really big guy with a blonde flat top showed up and picks up Missy and starts heading toward the trucks. I'm suddenly looking at a horse's belly from where I've been tossed over a saddle … that thing on the front, the saddle horn, knocked the wind out of me. Rand had used Hatchet to wade through the crowd; apparently being stepped on by a horse or kicked by one moves you out of the way even better than a burlap bag of cans. Even after Rand put me on my feet between two of the semi trailers it took me a minute to get my breath back.

The big guy … found out later his name was Major Sawyer … told us to stay with Missy and then he went out and started shouting orders and I heard some screams as some crowd control started happening. Missy was a mess but she had started cussing by the time the medics showed up. She had quite a vocabulary; most of it wasn't really what you would call curse words per se, it was more like creative descriptions of people's lack of character and mental capacity. I was trying not to smile but when Rand looked at me all sour-faced I lost the battle and had to put my hand over my mouth to stop the snickers. Then the medics started smiling. My personal opinion is that if she still had that much inventiveness then there was nothing wrong with her brain even if her head had gotten stepped on.

There were some people who didn't want to disperse. They were complaining that they hadn't gotten their supplies or that they had been stolen or that the bag had ripped or whatever. The Major summed it up by saying, "Forget it people. This station is closed. If you have problems, take it up with your neighbors that started this riot. And don't make it worse than it already is; when word gets back to command they may just close the work for food program in this area all together." Now that last bit shut people up and I saw some scared eyes staring at the mess that had been made.

The Major was nice enough but he said that we'd need to go because they were securing the area. Missy told her staff to make sure that we both had our food bags and then I saw the Major slip something to Rand. The medics took Missy away after she told Rand not to worry her Dad, that she would get word to him as soon as she could. The Major told Rand that he'd see to Missy's care personally. I think there is something going on between Missy and the Major but I didn't feel it was my place to ask.

As we were leaving the Major pointed to my eye and asked if I had gotten hurt in the fight. I told him no but he had one of the medics look at it anyway. It got a clean bill of health and told to stop getting into fights. I opened my mouth to defend myself when I figured out he was ribbing me. Gosh, it doesn't matter how old they are, guys are just trouble with a capital T. And silly too, for a fact.

Rand tied the two bags across Hatchet's saddle and we started walking out of town. It was spooky. It went from there being a huge crowd and fight to no people, like everyone had found a place and hid. We almost got run over at the corner of US90 and SR129 by a bunch of military vehicles that were going really fast down the highway. Some of them almost didn't make the corner. Rand said they must have been called in as backup in case people started to change their mind and come looking for trouble again. "Word is going to get around fast that the Major said the program site may close. Some people might think they have nothing to lose at this point."

I asked him what happened to Julia and he said she left as soon as she had gotten her food allotment. Her brother had been there to escort her home. I asked why her brother hadn't been the one to work and all he did was laugh. I took that to mean that Rand's opinion of Julia's brother wasn't very high.

We kept walking and Rand's stomach growled so I asked him if he was hungry. He told me yes that the lunch had only been a sandwich and an apple and he was saving the apple for Janet. I pulled out the nose bags I had put together and handed him one. He grinned and dug into his. He asked me what kind of lunch I had gotten and I just shrugged. I really hadn't noticed whether we got lunch or not, I'd been so busy making up bags that I hadn't even noticed when lunch had come and gone. The oatmeal for breakfast was really filling. Rand got upset when he figured out I hadn't eaten and tried to give me what was left of his granola and dried fruit. I told him I was fine, I hadn't been out on the interstate stripping down cars like he had. He grumped and proceeded to read me a lecture on paying better attention and not letting things like free lunches get passed me. I just nodded my head like I was listening; guys seem to like that. I was really thinking about the day and what I needed to do tomorrow as I already had some plans.

We were exiting the city limits when we saw Uncle George coming lickety split with the wagon from one direction and a truck coming from the other. They both pulled up short right where we were at. The driver of the truck was the medic that had looked at my eye. Rand calmed Uncle George down … apparently someone named Marjorie Mitchell had come home with a story of having seen Missy "trampled near to death" that sent him tearing here to check on everyone … and the medic assured him that while Missy was pretty banged up she was still full of vinegar and would make a full recovery if she would mind the Major. That is another thing that makes me think that Missy and the Major are more than friends.

The medic said, "Mr. Crenshaw, the Major sent some stuff along for your trouble and for the young lady here for defending one of his staff members." He then took several large bags out of the truck bed and put them in Uncle George's wagon. Uncle George for his part told the medic, "Please tell the Major that should Missy … or either of them or both … need a bed, we've got the room." The medic grinned and waved as he pulled out.

You could tell that Uncle George was having a hard time pulling himself together. Rand went over and put his arm around him. I didn't know what to do so I just stood there trying not to be obvious. After a moment Uncle George sniffed real big and squared his shoulders and things were back right again. "Now young lady, exactly what did that man mean about you defending one of his staff?" That meant I had to tell the story to Uncle George's satisfaction. I laid it on heavy about being tossed upside down on Hatchet so he wouldn't pay too much attention to the other stuff but he didn't fall for the misdirection the way Aunt Wilma always had.

I got hugged. It felt funny but funny in a good way, not funny in a bad way. But it was weird too. I barely know the man but "uncle" somehow feels right when I think about it. How strange is that? I'm pretty sure Momma and Daddy would like Mr. George Crenshaw quite well. While I'd been explaining Rand had rearranged the bags and put them all into the bed of the wagon. One of the bags had a piece of paper stapled to it that said "Miss S." Rand asked me if the S was for Snow or for Stubborn. Ha ha; very funny. He needs to take that act on the road.

Rand put me up on Hatchet and told me to hold on while he got in behind me. Uncle George followed us to my gate and then all the way back to the house this time but like Rand he didn't say anything about my funky looking lattice barricade. Rand got down and helped me down; I was pretty sore at that point which made Rand grin and made me want to kick him in the ankle.

While Rand was looking around to make sure no one was hiding in ambush, Uncle George said, "I was going to try again to get you to come home with us but I can see why you'd want to stay here. But you listen to me, if you ever get in trouble, you run to our place. Don't worry about anything else, we'll figure it out. You hear me?" Rand had already drawn me a map and made me memorize the directions just in case I lost the paper.

I knew it was getting late and they knew it was getting late. They needed to go but neither man felt comfortable leaving me. I figured they were being so nice I told them to wait a second. Rand followed but stopped at my porch to put down the two bags giving me time to go out to the orchard. I had picked a sack full and was running back when we met up and we walked back to Uncle George one last time.

He didn't want to take the blueberries but I said they were for the girls to make dumplings and then told him how I'd made them. "Dumplings are real simple and once they get the hang of it it will make them feel so good that when some weiner-headed boy makes fun of what they put on the table they won't care." I was looking at Rand when I said it and he got that "What? Who me?" look on his face. Uncle George finally smiled, if a little sadly.

It has been a full day and I'm really glad to be home. It's quiet without Rand or Uncle George around but I'll be glad to sleep in the dormer room again. I was surprised as all get out when I dragged the heavy burlap bags inside and opened them. The one that I had earned by working was full of the stuff like I had packed in all the other bags but instead of dried fruit there was a big bag of gingerroots. The other bag that Major Sawyer had sent had several packages of toilet paper in it, a big package of feminine stuff, a big bag of wheat, another of cornmeal, and a third of sugar. The rest of the bag was filled with what looked like all the odds and ends from the Miscellaneous Crate.

That's what I meant about seeing both the best and the worst of people. The work day wasn't so bad until the end but I'm glad it's over. It was nice earning something but I'm not too sure that I want to go on another one any time soon; some folks around here seem pretty touchy.

I almost didn't notice it but written on the back of the note that had said "Miss S" Rand had written, "Don't think I've forgotten about your shooting lessons. I'll see you on Saturday after the Farmer's Market. Until then, don't go any place outside the house without that rifle. And keep it loaded brat. Uncle George will have my head if anything happens to you. I wouldn't like it too much either. – R"

I just don't know where he gets off trying to order me around. It's OK for now I guess but I'll have to put my foot down eventually.

Something good did come of today. That woman Doris helped me whether she meant to or not. I overheard her bragging to her friend how she was canning over an open fire outside. Ding, ding, ding … we have a winner. I spent a couple of hours tonight after my evening chores going over Momma's recipes for canning blueberries. I'm ready to give it a try so that's what I'll be doing tomorrow assuming it doesn't rain.


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

 **May 16** **th** -I think for the first time in a long time I'm starting to do what Daddy always talked about, "Work smarter, not harder." He also used to say, "Prior planning prevents poor performance." That's the way I want to be. I feel really, really good - like something has changed. I'm happening to life, not just life happening to me.

Before I went to bed last night I washed and laid out all of the stuff I would need for today. There was the big speckleware canning pot and the jar rack that fit down inside it; several pails of water (so that it wouldn't be as cold as when it came out of the pump and take more wood to heat up); a couple of cases of pint jars, rings, and seals; a pound and ounce food scale; a jar funnel made just for canning; a jar lifter, a timer, big glass mixing bowls, a pitcher and several wooden spoons. I even put a bib apron out like we used to wear at the diner.

I was so excited this morning that I didn't even mind Fraidy the Alarm Cat going off so that she could get her water dish. I jumped up and got my morning chores done real quick. The cows aren't inhaling the grass as fast as I can throw it over so I hope that means they are learning that it'll be there and they aren't starving quite so bad any more.

I needed to wait for some of the dew to dry before I started to pick the berries, but I couldn't wait until it got too hot, so I hurried up and built the fire pit. I used the hole I keep dug out but I added a layer of bricks around the hole like a ring. Daddy had kept all the extra bricks that weren't used on the exterior of the house – they are solid Georgia brick and should hold up to being around a fire better than cinder blocks would. Daddy had also kept the heavy rebar grate that we used on our fire ring when we were building the house. That thing is heavy (and dirty) and I had to roll it from the barn to the back of the house because it was too heavy for me to carry very far. After I got the ring of bricks leveled out I removed a brick on each side so that I could add wood to the fire without having to move the grate and to give the fire air … not enough air, not enough fire.

The grate was way bigger than I needed for the canner but I just centered everything to make best use of it since I didn't have anything better. It didn't hurt anything and it gave me room to put a coffee pot of water on the outside to heat up water with. I also set up a hard topped card table with some towels on it so I would have a workspace outside so I wouldn't have to keep running in and out. I threw some extra towels in a plastic lounge chair nearby so they'd be handy when I needed them.

I started the fire and then let it burn down so that the flames wouldn't touch the bottom of the canner … I wanted heat, not necessarily flame, just like when I was cooking the beans. Then I put the canner on and filled it half full of water to let the water start heating up. I'm glad I started it when I did and next time I'll know I can't have the canner so far from the coals 'cause it took longer to heat the water than I planned and I got ahead of myself in some of the other jobs.

From there I grabbed a bucket and ran out to the orchard where I picked a mess of ripe blueberries. It only took me a couple of bushes before my bucket was full. I took them back to house only to find the water in the canner was nowhere near warm enough yet. I set the berries in the relative cool of the summer kitchen and then went back for more berries. After three loads of berries the water was still just barely simmering so I stuck some more wood down into the fire and I figured by the time I finished preparing the berries the water should be hot enough.

I remembered just in time that I would need to get my jars hot even though they were already clean so I used the jar lifter to put them down in the canner to heat up while I fixed what was going to go in them. The problem for me was that a lot of Momma's canning recipes call for a lot of white sugar. There are some that use honey but not a lot of them. Looking at my inventory sheets last night I tallied up that, between what was in the stuff Daddy bought and the stuff Momma canned plus what I found and what I earned, I have about two hundred pounds of white sugar. That sounds like a whole lot only Momma's notes say that a pound of sugar only has two cups in it. When you look at it like that, and read how much sugar it takes to can stuff, that isn't much sugar at all. So for my first try at canning I decided to use a recipe that didn't require any sugar.

I washed and picked over the first bucket of berries and then measured eight pounds using Momma's scale. I dipped out a pitcher of the now boiling water and poured it into another pot that I carefully put the eight pounds of berries into. I left them in the water for 30 seconds. I started hauling the jars out of the canner as quick as I could and dumping the boiling water back into the canner and sitting them on the towel on the card table. I had my seals and rings in a mesh bag that I set into the boiling canner at that point.

Using the jar funnel I filled each pint jar with berries, leaving what is called "head space" of one-half inch. That means that I filled the jars full but left a half-inch empty space at the top. Then, using the water I had boiled the berries in, I filled each jar with the purplish water up to the same half-inch mark, making sure to wipe any drips off the jar rim when I moved the funnel to the next jar. When all the hot jars were filled with hot berries and hot liquid, I drew the mesh bag out of the canner and dumped the contents on my work surface. I had to move quick cause those rings and lids burnt my fingers. I put a sealing lid on a jar with the gummed side down and then put a screw ring over that and tightened it down.

Next I used the jar lifter to set the pint jars down into the canner. Momma's notes said not to pack the jars too tight or they would knock against each other and crack while they were boiling. The canner I was using was Momma's smaller one and it holds nine pints which was good because that's how big the first batch of berries were. I had to add a little more water from the coffee pot to make sure that the water covered the top of the jars plus one extra inch. I put the lid on the canner and then had to wait until it came back to a boil. While I was waiting on that to happen I got the next batch of berries ready. Once the water in the canner was boiling … not fake boiling where you only see oxygen bubbles but real boiling that makes the top of the water move around real strong … I set the timer for 15 minutes.

Today I got four batches of berries done and I am pooped. You wouldn't think it was so much work … Momma always made it look so easy. The first two batches I made like I just described, then next batch was blueberry pie filling (that used three cups of sugar to get five pints of filling), and the last batch was blueberry preserves.

The blueberry preserves were really easy to make too. It was five cups of blueberries, two teaspoons of cider vinegar, two and a quarter cups of sugar, half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, half a teaspoon of ground allspice, and a quarter teaspoon of ground cloves. Cook everything together until it thickens. Then ladle into jars and go process in the canner same as with everything else. The recipe only made five half-pints but the work was worth it.

Momma always said she liked making preserves better than jelly 'cause it was less work, less mess, less waste. I remember one summer vacation her and my aunt making these on my grandfather's farm. When all the jars for a bath were fixed and there was a small piece of a jar left, it would be given to us kids to spread on my grandmother's homemade biscuits. Yum, yum. I felt good about accomplishing stuff today but I remember when the family was all together it was so much fun. Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie were always too busy to do stuff like that and too out of touch with the rest of the family. I guess that one of the reasons that I like Rand's family so much is they really seem like a family and not just a bunch of people living under the same roof.

I did find out that preparing to can is half the battle so tonight I cleaned everything back up and laid it out for tomorrow. I don't think I did half bad. I haven't had much time to do anything else today but can and gather wood; keeping that fire going takes more than I imagined.

As each batch came out of the canner I set it on towels in the kitchen and then laid a towel over the top of the jars too. Momma said that was to prevent a stray breeze doing something to the jars it wasn't supposed to. I'm not sure if that is an old wives' tale or not but I followed Momma's written instructions to the letter just to be sure. As the jars sealed some of them would make this neat "pop" sound. And tonight I used a permanent marker to label and date all of the jars. I can't put them away until they cool and that won't be until tomorrow. I'm only waiting on one jar of preserves to seal and if it doesn't I'll just keep that one and eat it myself with peanut butter for my lunches.

It came to me while I was making the preserves that I'm missing an important piece of the puzzle for me. I don't know how much of everything to try and can. I've got a lot of jars and lids, but how many of them do I use to can different things. One way I thought about it is that there are 52 weeks in a year, if I have blueberries once a week then I need to fix 52 jars. Right now I have 18 pints of whole blueberries, 5 pints of blueberry pie filling, and 5 half-pints of blueberry preserves. That's 28 jars which means I still need 24 jars of blueberry stuff. I think I want more blueberry pie filling and more blueberry preserves too but the whole blueberries use less sugar. I want to can blueberry juice too because I like to make blueberry lemonade. Blueberry syrup would come in handy for drizzling over biscuits or pancakes but I have to draw the line some place.

And on top of that I have to figure out if I have enough blueberries to do what I want to do. Momma and I planted twenty blueberry bushes but only sixteen of them have survived because I wasn't here regularly enough to take care of them the way they needed. Momma tested the soil all over until she found just the right place to put the blueberries. I need to read Momma's notes again. There is some special blueberry fertilizer in the shed but I don't know what to do when that runs out.

Now if I'm understanding Momma's notes I should be getting about five pounds of berries per blueberry bush. Sixteen bushes times five pounds means that I should have ninety pounds of berries or thereabouts when all is said and done. I figure I probably used 24 or 25 pounds up today … I think. And there are still tons of berries out there. I'm afraid they'll go to waste before I can get them all preserved. Some are already falling on the ground which is gonna draw mice and rats if I don't hurry up.

After thinking about it, tomorrow I am going to can five more pints of blueberry pie filling, five more half-pints of blueberry preserves, six pints of blueberry syrup, and if there is any time left I will make blueberry juice. I'm also going to have to build a second fire ring so that I can cook the stuff that is going into the jars; it was too crazy trying to cook over a single fire today.

If I had a refrigerator I could spend one day picking berries and the next day canning them instead of having to pick them for each individual batch. The few that I picked this morning that didn't get used are already mushy so I mixed them in with some cornbread mix and had cornmeal flapjacks for dinner.

Gee whiz, Fraidy just started crying at the window and she scared me to death. I nearly fell off the window seat. I didn't know what was going on until I heard a coyote and then a couple of others join in. My cat isn't stupid; she knows who'll keep those big ol' mean coyotes from snacking on her. As soon as I got the screen out and the shutters open she shimmied in and ran over to my dad's bench and crawled under it. I hope she doesn't make a mess again.

It's my bedtime anyway. The sun has been down almost half an hour and I want to get up before first light so I can get ready and get the cows fed early.

 **May 17** **th** – Terrible start to this day and a rough ending. Fraidy woke me up walking all over my head telling me she wanted out. I let her out the window and shutter and was tempted to go back to bed but I could hear the birds waking up so knew that was a no go. Morning chores were fine and I didn't even have to make breakfast because there were left over flapjacks for me to nibble on and all I wanted to drink was water.

Everything was fine until I went out to feed the cows and found only six of them; the carcass of the seventh was visible over in some leafless and dead bushes. I don't think coyotes did it. The belly area was all hollowed out so it was probably the dogs again. I am so mad. There wasn't anything I could do. God will use it to feed other, smaller creatures but I just wished that I could save the cows that were left. I even prayed about it but I'm not too sure I'm happy with the answer I got.

I went back to canning and got the preserves, syrups, and pie filling done and was picking more berries when I heard the cows making a whole bunch of noise. I grabbed the rifle … who knows what I thought I was going to do with it but it seemed like the right thing to do … and go running to try and save "my" cows. There were men there on horses herding them away from the watering hole. They were poking them and shoving them 'cause they didn't want to go. Six men to one of me, even being upset I knew that wasn't good odds. Then I heard one of the men shout, "Mr. Henderson! You want us to do anything with this carcass? It looks fairly fresh!"

A man who looked to be a little older than Uncle George rode up on a big black horse and said, "Bring the wagon around, we'll give it to Peters for tanning."

So I figured I had to be looking at the Henderson man that Rand told me about. He was smart too because he rode up to where you could tell I'd been feeding the cows but he was slow and watchful. That's when I stepped out of the bushes. He didn't even jump but his horse jingled around a little bit. He got more careful as he looked at me … not like I was dangerous careful but like he was gonna handle me careful. All I did was stand there.

"You been feeding them?"

"Yes sir."

"Are they yours?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that one but I had to be honest or get in trouble. "Not really."

"Then why were you feeding them?"

"'Cause they were hungry and pitiful and a little grass and palmettos wasn't going to hurt me any."

He smiled a bit and said, "You may look like your momma but you are your daddy on the inside ain't ya girl?"

That shocked me and he said, "Yes, I knew your folks. They bought this land from my brother. I was sorry to hear of their passing. Your aunt and uncle about?"

I knew I was treading on dangerous water here. "No sir." But that is all I said and kept my mouth shut.

"Hmm. Like that is it? You be careful, Julia Winston has run her mouth a bit. I heard it from my granddaughter that Rand Joiner was helping 'a little girl and her family' over this way."

It took a lot for me not to spout off about who was she to call me a little girl when she wasn't but a couple of years older than me but I just gritted my teeth. Mr. Henderson spit from where he'd dipped some snuff and winked at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You know these cows need to be looked after better?"

Again, what was I supposed to say? "Yes, sir." Then I got my courage up and asked, "Can you keep the dogs from getting them?"

Mr. Henderson scrunched up his face like he was thinking and then asked me, "What dogs?"

"There's a pack that has been getting to them. There used to be ten but sometimes when I come out in the morning there is one less. I feed them but a cow can't protect itself against two dozen big dogs and I don't think I can either."

"How do you know it's dogs and not something else?"

I went on to tell him how I've watched them come across the field in the early morning hours and the direction they go and how I found one less cow this morning and he could see what it looked like. Then I asked him again if he could keep the dogs away.

"No dogs get my cattle … and no girl, you can get that look off your face, we ain't gonna eat them either. They're too scrawny right now and besides they're dairy cows now beef cattle. We need more breeding heifers."

I watched them lead the cows away and then Mr. Henderson left telling me to not wander around loose because he could vouch for his men and their morals but there was some in town he couldn't. He also told me to make sure I locked my doors and windows at night. I got the message, it was the same thing that Rand told me … behave and be careful and stay out of trouble. I swear, I'm sixteen not six. But I guess they mean well … I have to figure people like Mr. Henderson aren't comfortable with a sixteen year old girl raising herself but are independent enough themselves to let me try and prove myself. Whatcha wanna bet though somebody from the Henderson place checks up on me every so often now.

Stupid cows. There was no reason for me to cry about them but I cried like a baby while I picked a bunch of blueberries to make juice with.

It's a good thing making blueberry juice is so simple or I probably would have made a huge mess. You just put the blueberries in a pot, cover them with water and cook them just below the boiling point … the way you do when you are heating milk on the stove top … for thirty minutes. Then I poured the berries into Momma's jelly bag and the juice dripped through the colander and was caught in another pot. For every gallon of juice I made I added a cup of sugar and heated it until the sugar was dissolved then poured it into pint jars and canned it the same way I had everything else. I wound up with two gallons of juice or eight pints.

I had settled down and had all the jars put inside and was cleaning up my mess for the day when I jiggled when I should have joggled and really hot water came splashing out of the canner before I could get out of the way. I got a lot on my left foot, some on my pants and a good splash on my left hand. Man oh man I was hopping and around and kicking off my shoe and skinning out of my pants right there in the yard. Mmm mmm mmm, talk about stinging bad. Then I ran to the bucket of water that I keep handy when I've got a fire going and just stuck my whole foot and hand in it until the burning stopped.

I suppose it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been and at least there wasn't anyone around to see me strip right out in the open like that. My foot and leg aren't even red anymore; my hand seems to have gotten the worst of it. The top of my hand has all these tiny blisters on it. I wrapped some gauze around it because the first aid book said not to use any cream or anything but gee whiz I sure do wish I dared to use some of that burn cream that was in the kit. My hand is itching like crazy where the baby blisters are touching the gauze. I also took some ibuprofen since the first aid book said that would help.

It was a stupid accident and I didn't mean it to happen, but I suppose most accidents are like that otherwise they wouldn't be called accidents they would be called something else. It was slow going making sure everything was clean up after that. How I'm supposed to can tomorrow I don't know.

 **May 18** **th** – I'm getting a little sick of blueberries. I know I shouldn't be but I am. For every bucketful that I pick there seems to be a hundred more still on the bushes. I made sixteen more pints of blueberry juice and canned nine more pints of plain berries. Not much more to say. Hit my hand picking up wood and I nearly said a curse word. Had to say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" loud enough that I could stop myself from even thinking one. I'm sure the birds watching me dance around thought it was being silly but it helped me feel better.

Saying cuss words – and I confess that I've said a few – always makes me feel so guilty. I heard Daddy say a couple every so often but never when he thought brother or I were around and always under his breath like he didn't want people hearing him say them. I never heard Momma say a curse word at all … I can't even remember her saying "dang" or "shoot." Mr. Henderson is right; I may look like Momma on the outside but I'm not near as sweet on the inside. I know I should work on that but I'm not sure right now is the time to do it.

 **May 19** **th** – If I never see another ding blasted blueberry it will be too soon. I'm being ungrateful. I know I should feel blessed to have all these berries but it's like some bottomless basket; every time I think I'm coming to the end of them the next day there are more and more and more. And I can't just let them go to waste. Every time I get tempted to I hear Daddy saying, "Waste not, want not. I taught my little black-headed baby better than that."

That's what Daddy used to call me, his "little black-headed baby." He called Momma "Punkin." He used to call my brother "Shadow" or "Barnacle" depending on how close he was trying to follow Daddy around. I can still hear Daddy's voice, Momma's not so much. Momma was more soft spoken and sweet. I don't guess I'll ever stop missing them.

Today I made another 18 pints of juice and 18 pints of plain berries and I am calling myself done. Tomorrow is the farmer's market and I'm going to take two big buckets to see if I can trade them or … heck, I'll give them away if someone looks hungry enough. If I don't have enough berries canned from all the work this week it's not for lack of trying. I only have me to feed after all.

I'll get up early – I can't believe I still miss those stupid cows; all they did was cause me work – pick two buckets of berries and then walk back towards town. My hand doesn't hurt as much so it shouldn't be a problem. The farmer's market isn't actually in town but in the parking lot of an old strip center right on the city limits … the center of town is a mess. For sure I'm glad I don't have to walk any further than the city limit sign.

I found another place I need to weave in some potato vines. A small pine tree died and it dropped its needles to the ground suffocating the grass underneath. Now there is a bare patch that is thin enough to easily get through. If it wasn't so close to the house I would just let it fill in naturally but from the road you can now see the barn and that defeats the whole purpose of the other lattice I built.

Fraidy opted to stay inside again tonight. Wonder if she knows something I don't?


	21. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

 **May 20** **th** \- Well, I'll say the day has been interesting, I'll give it that. I woke up to find my world covered in a very dense fog. It was freaky; I opened the window and shutter for Fraidy to go out and I could see, even in the dark, the fog tried to roll into the room. Fraidy wouldn't go out into it so I shut everything back up and she followed me down stairs.

She went onto the lanai finally but she wasn't acting real confident about that either; I think she had something against getting so wet. I still didn't know how bad the fog was until morning started trying to trickle through the wet blanket that was wrapping everything up. That sounds poetic, like something I would have written for school, but the truth is it was just wet and nasty. It was only pretty when you didn't have to be out in it.

I did my morning chores by lamplight. I had laid out what I wanted to wear but I must have changed my mind about ten times. I wasn't sure whether to dress up, dress down, wear work clothes, don't act like I had any spare clothes or just what. To be honest it's not like I had a lot of different options, mostly it would have just meant the difference between wearing a nice scarf or wearing a bandana or wearing work boots or tennis shoes. I finally decided I was being awful silly and just wore jeans, a bandana to cover my braid, and work boots. I wore a decent t-shirt but I put a lightweight hunting vest over the top of it more because it had a bunch of pockets than anything else.

In the pockets of the vest I put some bullets for the rifle, a couple of plastic bags, a couple of Ziploc bags, and some odds and ends of snacks including some raisins that made me wonder if I can dry blueberries the way you can dry grapes to get raisins. I know Momma has a book on drying foods around here someplace, it's just a matter of finding it.

I put a thermos of blueberry-lemonade together. That's basically some blueberry juice, a little bit of sugar, a packet of TruLemon, and enough cold water to thin it out so you don't suck your teeth in on the sour. I was going to put something more into my backpack but I decided against it because I fixed grits for breakfast which would hold me over and I didn't know what other people would have with them. I learned fast once I got to highschool that it is better to not stand out until you've got the lay of the land. If people think you are too different they'll gang up on you and make your life a misery.

It was light by the time I was ready to step outside but the fog had barely started to burn off. I went to the orchard and picked a bucket full of blueberries but quickly decided that I was only going to be able to carry one and not the two I had intended. One, my hand still hurt if it got hit or stretched too much, and two, that bucket and berries was going to get heavy quick. I decided to bring gloves just to be on the safe side. I also covered the open end of the bucket with a piece of cheese cloth and a piece of string to keep bugs out but let the berries breath so that they wouldn't get nasty. Lastly, I had to carry the rifle. I was supposed to meet Rand at some point and I didn't need a lecture. Just for good measure I put the Hi-Point and the bullets for it in my backpack.

I locked everything down and started walking about 6:30 am. The stupid bucket was already heavy by the time I got to the main gate at CR49. I had to stop for a break at CR49 and US90. It wasn't long before I figured out that the farmer's market was a big deal. In a matter of minutes of starting west on US90 I was walking in a drib and drab crowd of people all heading in the same direction. Some people were riding bikes and I wanted to give myself a dope-slap for not thinking of mine. There were enough people on horseback to remind me I wasn't in Tampa anymore and the wagons made me realize there weren't any cars or trucks around and that I hadn't heard any since the work day.

It was people's moods though that really kind of upset me. Hardly anyone was talking and if they did it was in whispers. No one was saying hello to each other, not even waving or nodding like they knew each other. It was totally different than at the work day. I didn't understand what had happened to change things.

I was relieved to see Pastor Ken and he was driving an old-fashioned horse-drawn buggy. It reminded me of the one that "Doc" used to drive on that TV show _Little House on the Prairie_ , it even had a black roof on it to keep sun and rain out. The pastor had people talking to him so I sort of hung back. I didn't want to interrupt and draw attention to myself; besides, my manners are better than that. He pulled his buggy off to the side of the road to speak to some men and not be in the way of traffic so I just kept walking. I did manage to make eye-contact with him and he recognized me. It made me grin when his eyes got wide. He wasn't really startled, he was just being silly. I found out later he does a killer Donald Duck impression that the little kids all love.

I got in line to go into the fenced off area used by the flea market when the rough looking guy at the gate pulled me out. "No one under 18 unless accompanied by an adult."

Here was the first test of me being on my own. I could turn around and leave or I could stand my ground. In my best grown up I-have-to-deal-with-this-all-the-time voice I said, "People often mistake my age." True, but not the way he took it.

He gave me a hard look and then said, "We need proof of residency and a picture ID." I knew right there he was yanking my chain because no one else had shown any kind of papers or ID. That's when Pastor Ken walked up behind me and said, "I can vouch for where she lives and any paperwork should be available through Major Sawyer's office."

The guy wasn't happy. I didn't get it at all. What was the big deal? Then someone else behind me asked, "What's the problem Harbinger?"

The guy changed his tune pretty quick. "Oh nothing Mr. Henderson. This … lady … hasn't got any proof that she is from around here and … "

"Don't be an idiot Freddie. The Pastor's already vouched for her and I know for a fact she is a resident of the county. My brother Sam and her parents were friends. Stop wasting everyone's time, we're here to do business even if you and your father aren't."

OK, pieces started falling into place. The guy was one of that Mr. Harbinger's sons and was one of a pair that Rand warned me about. I kept my "bored adult" look on my face and tried to not give into the temper tantrum I felt coming on. I don't know for sure whether the creep had pulled me out of line just to give a "young girl" a hard time or to do me a "favor" so he could have one in return. I don't know whether Rand just dislikes the Harbingers – granted it sounds like for good reason – or exactly what is going on. What happened later kind of cleared things up but I still like to make my own opinions of people; gossip can be wrong and I ought to know that as well as anyone since I've been on the target of it often enough.

You could tell that "Freddie" didn't like being called an idiot and I found out later that Mr. Henderson called him Freddie rather than Fred to make him feel like a kid. He wasn't a kid though; he was about 25 I guess. But he was smart enough to know that Mr. Henderson isn't the man to make into an enemy so he waived me through without another word. I noticed that just as soon as Mr. Henderson and his men were out of earshot ol' Freddie went back to picking and choosing who he was going to be trouble for.

Pastor Ken came in and asked me how I was doing and told me where he would be if I wanted to stop by. He had a couple of camp chairs and a table and I guess from what I saw he just hangs around for people that might need someone to talk to.

I could already tell that the day was going to be a warm one. It wasn't even 8:30 in the morning and I had sweat dotting my upper lip and I was noticing that a lot of folks must be out of deodorant. I wandered around looking at all the stalls that were set up. Some were really fancy with a big table and one of those folding sunshades big enough to have a picnic under. Some were nothing more than a blanket on the ground. There were some food stalls but mostly it looked like a giant garage sale.

I just looked around for a bit, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Crenshaws or Rand but they weren't there so I had to figure out things on my own. I noticed there was a huge line at this kiosk being run by guys in military fatigues. Every time I tried to get over there and look I'd get the "move along" look by the guards stationed on that end of the market area.

"Trying to figure out what is going on?"

I nearly came out of my skin. How a guy that big can move that quiet I don't know. It was Major Sawyer and he was smiling like he'd pulled one over on me. The smile only got bigger when I rolled my eyes to let him know that I didn't think his sneaking up on me was all that funny and that I wasn't scared of him either.

At my "yes sir" he explained that people that still had money would line up and when it was their turn they'd have a chance to exchange it for something called "Sand Dollars." It was the currency being used in Florida for local trade. I'm not certain of all the details but the Major said there is worldwide financial depression going on, that the dollar did something called devaluing, and even though every other country had the same thing or worse happen to them that it has caused a huge mess of epic proportions and that the old paper money means almost nothing so it is being collected at the state level. If I understand it correctly so many of the big wigs in Washington DC have died that there is a huge confusion and every state is having to do what it can just to get by.

He said more but most of it didn't make any difference to me. I didn't have any cash to exchange except for the jars of coins I found in Daddy's stuff, just a bunch of dimes and nickels mostly except for that jar of silver dollars. I knew Momma collected some coins in her blue coin books and she collected all those state quarters that came out but I never knew Daddy did it too. I can't imagine their hobby stuff is worth all that much and I wouldn't want to trade them anyway. That would be like trying to trade my old stamp collection or my brother's game card collection. It would just be too sad.

I looked around and then asked him about the ration books I had heard about. He said that a lot of stuff is in short supply but for special items like fuel, it wasn't just in short supply the government was telling people how much and when they could buy it. The ration cards would get stamped at every purchase, kind of like a coupon. People got a new ration book each month when the old one was turned in.

That's when he asked me if I had picked pick up my ration book yet. I said no and that it wouldn't matter because I couldn't buy anything anyway. I said, "What am I supposed to buy things with, my looks?"

He got a real serious look on his face and said that he hoped I hadn't said that to anyone else. I didn't get it and I guess it must have been obvious because he pulled me to the side and explained something to me. He said that some women and girls were buying things "with their looks." It took me a sec to understand what he was trying to tell me. I guess it isn't that farfetched. You used to hear stories on the news all the time about women turning to prostitution because of drugs or dancing in one of those adults-only type clubs. I told him I'd watch my mouth better and that satisfied him; at least he acted like I had a brain in my head and wasn't embarrassed about explaining the way things were to me. I think I can see why Missy likes him. He had to go handle some Major-type stuff but the last thing he mentioned was that at the end of the month, with enough ration points left, I could actually exchange the book for whatever items hadn't been bought up. He said Missy had my book and that she'd explain everything else some other time but it might be a while until I saw her. I didn't think much of what he said but looking back I guess he had assumed I knew what had happened.

I knew I needed to do something with the blueberries so I walked around for a while and listened to people haggle and barter. I honestly didn't see too much that I needed or wanted. I just kept walking around and was staying out of trouble until I nearly got run over by some men that had started brawling.

I ducked into a booth and came up against someone and stepped on their foot. I turned around to apologize and had to look way up. It was Freddie Harbinger. I jumped back from him and almost landed in the middle of the brawl again when he grabbed my arms and pulled me back. Now most people would have just assumed he was saving me from getting trampled but I can guarantee that there was no reason to pull me in quite so close and hold my arms as long as he did, especially when I was trying to get loose from him.

I don't know what would have happened if Mr. Henderson hadn't come along again. He wasn't there for me of course. He was kicking the backsides of the men that had been brawling and telling them to knock it off or take it outside the fence. He actually wound up grabbing the two guys by the scruff of their necks and banging their heads together twice before they'd stop fighting. Then he put his boot to their backsides again to get them gone from under foot. That's when he noticed me.

"Girl, what're you doing? Didn't I tell you to stay out of trouble?"

I told him I was trying. "Sure you are. Freddie, from the look of things she's trying to tell you she don't need your help any more. Come over here girl right now."

Good ol' Freddie snickered but I didn't care. I got behind Mr. Henderson as quick as I could, but I refused to rub my arms even though they felt bruised. I would have kicked Freddie if I thought I could have gotten away with it but I had my bucket and I didn't want any more trouble than what I was already in.

"Are you finished with your business here girl?"

I told him I wasn't trying to do business with the Harbingers, their booth was just next to the brawl and where I had jumped to keep from getting squashed like a bug.

Mr. Henderson said, "You might want to take off and go home now." But I told him I was supposed to meet Rand there and pick something up from Missy; I added the last 'cause it sounded better than if I had just said the first since people were being nosey and listening in.

Mr. Henderson got an odd look on his face and I could hear the people in the Harbinger stall snickering and laughing. I didn't get the joke but Mr. Henderson said, "Joiner likely won't be here today. There's no need for you to hang around."

I was going to ask him why but he had a look on his face that said it wouldn't be a good question to ask at that moment. I turned around when I heard someone say, "Oh Fred, don't."

It was Julia … Rand's Julia … only she was letting that big donkey's behind Freddie Harbinger put his arm around her. The thing is she didn't really sound all that sorry for the way Freddie was laughing, more like she was kind of acting like she was sorry but was really just showing off.

I swear, no matter how much things change there are some things that will always stay the same. It was just like being back in school and watching all of the stupid things girls and guys would do all in the name of "love." About the only thing that Aunt Wilma and I never disagreed about was the fact that I never wanted to date or anything like that. I did once have a guy that I liked and I thought he liked me but then he stabbed me in the back and I found out he only acted like he liked me. He wanted help with a big school project that he had to pass because his dad said if he hadn't brought he grades up his dad was going to take away his car and didn't mind letting "the weird girl" think he liked her … at least for a while. That hurt, not as much as feeling stupid did but the things he said still hurt.. And that was all it took for me to really see some of the ignorant things that went on. Even my friends did the dumbest stuff. One day they were going to marry the person they were "in love" with and a couple of days later they were gonna die from heartbreak. What was stupid was that a couple of days after that it would be someone new they had the hots for and it would all start over again. I gave up understanding why, I just knew it happened. Aunt Wilma said that they'd out grow it when highschool was over but Julia was the same age as Rand and Freddie Harbinger was even older and it sure didn't look like they had outgrown it to me.

I wanted to say something nasty but since I didn't know what had happened I decided silence was better. I looked up at Mr. Henderson and noticed he had one eye cocked up like he was surprised at something and not necessarily in a bad way; only he wasn't looking at Julia but over the heads of some people who had also turned to look at someone coming.

I turned around but was too short to see him until he was right there. Rand looked bad, worse than I did after my tussle with the gangbangers. He eye was black, his cheek was bruised, both his lips were split and he was walking slow like he hurt in other places too. His cousin Brendon was with him as was Jonathon.

I had lost track of what people were saying because I was concentrating on looking at all of Rand's ouches but when it got real quiet I did her Rand say, "Yeah, and if you and your cousin hadn't held me your brother wouldn't have gotten in as many licks as he did. By the way, where is he? His face must be just about as pretty as mine."

Freddie didn't like that and I could see a fight brewing with Julia egging it on and eating it up so I decided to pick sides and go after the one that had started this whole thing in the first place. I was talking at Rand when I said, "Well, I guess I misjudged her all right. Any girl that would handle things the way Julia did isn't to be trusted that's for sure." Then I turned to her and said, "And since you seem to be so comfy hanging all over Freddie like that in public you must be even getting more comfy with him in private. You make sure you use protection, word is he gets around if you know what I mean and he doesn't seem the type to man up if you get pregnant. Better safe than sorry."

Mr. Henderson started hustling us away while Julia started fussing at Freddie for letting me talk to her that way. Brendon was making this noise like he was trying really, really hard not to laugh while Rand and Jonathon looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

"Girl, you something else. Rand, unless you've got business here I'd suggest you cut your visit short. You've made your point."

Rand told Mr. Henderson, "As it happens I do have business. I need to give Sawyer a message from Missy and I have a couple of items to pick up as well."

Mr. Henderson just shook his head. I'm sure he thought we were all crazy. "Well, do it quick. I'll keep an eye on the Harbingers and their friends but I don't plan on doing it all day."

I tried to ask Rand what had happened but all he said was, "Later." Jonathon shrugged while he kept an eye out. I thought maybe Brendon was going to tell me but all he could do was laugh every time he looked at me. That wasn't helpful at all.

Major Sawyer was easy to find, he kind of stands out. The errands included exchanging some paper dollars for Sand Dollars (and they got back a whole lot fewer Sand Dollars than what they had handed over), buying a bag of rice and two of flour, and then stopping at a stall being run by this older lady who told Rand, "Boy, you look like something the cat dragged in."

Rand called the woman Momma O and bent over and kissed her check where she sat even though you could tell it pained him to do it. He introduced me and I got the feeling she was weighing me up and down and decided that she'd hold off on making a decision until she was more certain of what I was worth. That was fine, I'm not quite sure what to make of her yet either. When Brendon handed her a package she said, "George always has made the best dried venison." She handed Brendon a bag and said, "You tell Laurabeth to put those someplace they won't get wet and out of the sunlight and that she needs to get those black eyed peas in the ground."

Seeds, this woman had seeds for trade. Rand was hustling me off when the woman asked, "What you got in that bucket girl?"

"Blueberries."

"Where'd you get them? I didn't hear anyone was trading blueberries."

"I brought them." And when she gave me the eye like I was fibbing Rand finally stepped in and said, "She really did bring them Momma O. They are off some bushes her mother planted."

"Well, let me see 'em."

I looked at Rand but he wasn't much help. Even I could tell he was hurting so rather than make a fuss at the old woman I took the cheesecloth off the bucket and showed her what I had and told her they were picked fresh this morning.

"Hmmmm. Well, what will you take for them?"

I knew what I wanted and I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, all she could say was no. "I want to plant some vegetables."

She looked at the berries and ask, "Are they sweet?"

"Yes, ma'am. Even the ones that I canned without any sugar in them turned out good."

Her eyebrows hit her wig. "You telling me you know how to can girl?"

"I don't mean to be rude ma'am but my name is Kiri, not girl, and yes ma'am I know how to can. Momma showed me how when I was growing up and then I read her notes and figured out the rest."

She made me explain everything to her and then seemed surprised that I'd done things right. "Well, you've missed just about everything except black eyed peas, 'lopes, limas, and eggplants. You promise me you not gonna waste these seeds and I'll give you a little of each one _and_ take these berries off your hands so you don't have to carry 'em around."

I told her, "Give me my bucket back and I'll let you do me that favor."

She laughed real big and said, "You'll do girl, you'll do. Rand, I expect to see this girl … Kiri … in church soon. You hear me?"

That was it. We left the market, picked up their horses from the corral that was being run by some of Mr. Henderson's men, and headed east on US90 but no one was saying anything. Rand walked beside me but was hanging onto Hatchet's saddle for support even though I don't think I was supposed to notice.

"I see you remembered to bring the rifle."

"Yeah, but you don't look like you are in the mood to do any lessons." He got a little hot under the collar like guys do when their pride has been upset but I cut him off. "I don't mean anything bad by it. Your business is your business. I'm just saying I understand if you aren't in the mood."

"Daddy told him the same thing," Brendon volunteered. Rand gave him the evil eye for his trouble but it slid off Brendon like burnt egg off a non-stick skillet.

"I promised her I was going to teach her to shoot and care for the guns. Now with Harbinger taking notice of her no thanks to her big mouth," he said while staring right at me "it's even more important. And how the heck do you know Henderson? I thought I told you to stay away from his place."

I explained and by the time I was finished he was limping so bad he couldn't hide it. I told him not to be stupid and get up on the horse but he just kept walking. Brendon was nice enough to say, "He probably can't. We had to help him on at the house this morning."

I don't think Brendon is going to make it long in this world; he's even worse than I am about opening his mouth when it would be better to leave it shut. Jonathon though just shook his head, dismounted, hefted Rand onto Hatchet before he could protest and then tossed me up behind him. "Look, I don't have all day. I want to get back to Laurabeth."

When we got to the intersection at CR49 they mumbled and grumbled about how long was Rand going to be. I had my own reasons for wanting Rand to stay so I asked, "Is there any reason you all can't go on home and Rand can sleep at my place like he has before?"

The three of them looked at me real hard. Jonathon said, "That makes sense and you couldn't really do any chores around the place in the shape you're in anyway."

I swear, if it isn't their idea guys can be so slow to agree to a plan. Finally they gave in and Jonathon said he'd be by late tomorrow after delivering some stuff to the Henderson place and they'd ride back together. My take on that is that no one goes alone – especially Rand – for a while until this whole fight thing blows over.

Rand was silent all the way back to the house. When we got there he told me to get down and go do what I needed to and he'd take care of Hatchet. I figured out what the problem was when I came to the door to ask him something and saw him having a hard time getting down. I am not stupid. He obviously didn't want me seeing how bad off he was so I stood there and let him be a total guy about the whole thing. He finally got down and caught his breath so I felt it was safe to come back out. Still, I checked him on my way to the wood pile. He was wobbly but not bad.

I asked if he was thirsty and when he finally answered yes I gave him a cup of my still cold blueberry lemonade. I almost laughed at the look on his face. I told him there was plenty more if he wanted it and left the thermos for him. I hadn't planned on company but I figured he deserved something in exchange for teaching me to shoot so I grabbed the old box oven that had been in the camping gear and took it onto the lanai. I grabbed the small bag of charcoal and started some of them up. I also grabbed the fireplace shovel I've been using to dig out the ashes in my fire pit.

While Rand did whatever it was he did with Hatchet I mixed up a blueberry gingerbread recipe I found in Momma's notes. It used a box of gingerbread mix (the only one I found while scrounging through the last house) and made it the way you are supposed to and then dumped in a cup of fresh blueberries. I dumped that mess into a prepared baking dish. The coals were ready so I put a coal in for every 45 degrees that I needed into the box and then set the cake rack in there on top of the little metal legs. That's to keep the dish off the coals. It kind of looks like a regular oven only there are coals on the bottom instead of a heating element.

That done I boiled some water for rice and put some veggie bits to rehydrate. I also pulled out a can of chicken and set it on the counter. The pit was still hot but not burning so when I was done boiling water for cooking a set two metal buckets of water on there to catch the heat. By the time I was done with dinner prep the cake was finished and I set it on the counter to cool.

The smell of the cake had drawn Rand around back and he just sat there watching. When I got to a stopping point I asked him if he wanted to eat or if he wanted to shoot. His stomach growled but he said that he wanted to shoot for a while. And we did. I used up all of the ammo I had and then he made me use some of his. I've got to find some way to give it back without hurting his feelings and without letting on that I've got all that Daddy hid, I'm just not sure how to yet.

We didn't stop until Rand was satisfied that I could load, aim, and shoot without hurting myself. I was feeling pretty good until I got a good look at him. There were dark smudges under his eyes and he was really hurting; I could tell, but he didn't say anything.

I asked him could we stop because I was tired and he gave in without a fuss which told me how bad he must be feeling. We walked back to the house and I walked slow like I was pooped and played it up a bit by telling him I was up early and walked all the way to the flea market. When we got back to the house he was still awful quiet. I couldn't tell which hurt worse, his body or his heart.

I took the buckets of water off that were steaming hot and put a couple of pieces of really dry wood into the pit and they started up right away and the flames licked at the old skillet I set on the fire grate. I drizzled in a little bit of oil that came from the work day bag and got it hot. Then I dumped in the cooked rice, canned chicken, the rehydrated veggies, and some soy sauce and stir fried it up real quick. It wasn't like you would get from Little Panda but it was still good.

Rand ate and said thank you but I could tell he wasn't real with it. The gingerbread blueberry cake perked him up a smidge but not much. He offered to help with the dishes but I told him to sit 'cause this was a trade for the shooting lessons. He just nodded and sat. It was late afternoon and I was wondering what on earth I was going to do with Rand sitting around all mopey when I guess he just needed someone to talk to.

"Julia and I have been dating since highschool. I … I just can't believe … I don't understand what happened. It was all fine one day and the next I was getting the crap beat out of me by those Harbinger bast .. jerks. I know we'd been having problems but I thought we worked all of those out. Her father is friends with the Harbingers and he never was happy with us dating. The only thing that made him happy was when he found out I was going to college and getting a business degree. Lately he'd been giving me a hard time again about a lot of stuff, even more than before. He kept commenting that when Uncle George was gone I'd be living on my cousins' charity like I always had. Julia … she agreed to give me time to … I can't believe how she acted yesterday and today. That's not the girl …" and he just kind of slumped even further.

I didn't know what to say to help my friend to feel better so I just told him the truth as I'd experienced it. "Big life events change people. A thing as big as what we've all been living through … well … that's going to change people even more. I'm not the person I would have been if my family hadn't been killed. I watched kids that were my friends avoid me like the bad things that I had gone through were somehow contagious; like since my parents died so could theirs. The last couple of months I watched people I liked lie, cheat, and steal for food. My best friend stole my bedding knowing I wouldn't be able to replace it unless I stole some from someone else. And I sure haven't always behaved the way I ought."

He was listening so I said, "On the other hand, I found courage I didn't know I had on my escape from Tampa. I've faced things that have made me stronger. I'm getting the chance to be better than I was, maybe a chance to be better than I ever could have been if this hadn't happened. My Daddy always said it takes a lot of beating to make a sharp sword. Maybe that's what we're going through right now. The people that take what they think is the easy way in the end won't be as sharp as the people that take the beating and keep on ticking."

He was so tired but he said, "Are you positive you're sixteen?"

I told him, "Almost seventeen thank you very much and I can go back to being snarky and telling you exactly what I think of Julia if you want me to?"

He smiled real sad like and it made me angry. But it also reminded me that I didn't always make the greatest choices and that I'd been given more than a few second chances. "Look, if the Harbinger brothers are as rotten as you make them out to be then Julia ought to figure out real quick she goofed. If you care about her that much maybe you can let her know you'll take her back."

He didn't say anything to that but that was maybe because he was three-quarters asleep. I remembered how I felt so I ran and got him some ibuprofen and he took a couple and then went to sleep sitting up on the sofa. I didn't know what to do at that point so I just went about finishing my chores like normal, brought in some wood, planned tomorrow's menu, planned what I wanted to accomplish tomorrow, and then since Rand is still snoring I snuck upstairs and brought my nightclothes and journal downstairs and I've been sitting at the breakfast table ever since. But the sun is going down and I need to lock things up and figure out some way to move Rand so he is at least laying down; he's just kind of sprawled every which direction right now.

The juice out of the can of chicken and a few scraps from dinner convinced Fraidy to stay in tonight. I'm going to take the buckets of water to the bathroom, clean up real quick and then go to bed. I was going to give them to Rand to soak in but it's not worth waking him up over. I hope he feels better tomorrow. I feel bad for Rand but on the other hand I hope he isn't one of those guys that moons forever for a girl that he can't … or shouldn't … have. When my guy friends would do that it made me want to throw something at them.


	22. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

 **May 22** **nd** – I have the house to myself again. Rand left late yesterday but by the time I finished all my chores and looked through some more of Momma and Daddy's notes it was too dark to write and I really had too much thinking to do anyway. Sometimes writing helps me to think and sometimes it just slows me down.

It's a relief to be by myself again. I don't mean that in a bad way, Rand is good company, it's just I have a lot to think about and a lot I need to do but couldn't because with him around I couldn't get to the dormer room. He was also a little hard to be around, not that it wasn't my own fault for inviting him to stay.

I feel bad for him, his broken heart is for real; the beating he took just added insult to injury. I just don't know what to do or say to help him. He's a twenty-year-old guy; I don't think he'd appreciate advice from a sixteen year old "kid." The few times I tried he would get all stressed like he was trying to not get mad at me. And I don't know how far to take this friend thing either. He said himself once he is only around because he thinks he owes me. If I get too invested I could wind up with hurt feelings and that's the last thing I want to deal with on top of everything else that is going on.

But he is a nice guy. That's the thing, he really does mean well even if he is kind of managing and bossy like I'm a little kid that is half crazy and needs looking after. I'm none of those things and I wonder if that is all he sees me as or if maybe … oh forget it. All that stuff just gives me a headache. Rand is Rand and I am me and if he can't live with it I'm not about to change. I like him and his family, they seem to be good people to have on your side, and the rest is just going to have to take care of itself. If I get hurt then I'll have learned another lesson and deal with it.

Rand was still asleep when I got up yesterday but I noticed that the ibuprofen I had left on the table for him were gone and the water bottle I left was only half full. The wind-up flashlight I left for him just in case was wrapped up in the covers with him so I knew he woke up at least once during the night.

I tried to be quiet as I put together a breakfast of cheese grits with TVP bacon crumbles but Rand woke up at the sound of the first cabinet door opening. He was so different from the other time he was here that I got a little worried. The happy morning person was nowhere in sight. He was trying to get up and having trouble so I went over and gave him a hand up. I don't why he had to act so weird about it, he would have done the same thing for me. I put out two more ibuprofens for when he came out of the bathroom.

Broken heart or not, Rand can eat. Where a thin guy like him puts it is beyond me. He must have a hollow leg. He was quiet but he ate and he didn't say no to a second helping when I scooped it into his bowl. I had made sure I had enough so that even if Rand had eaten a third helping there would have been enough but since he didn't I poured the leftovers into a glass dish and set it in the useless microwave. For lunch I used the congealed block of grits to make fried mush just like my grandmother used to. But that was later.

Rand just sat there after breakfast and I wasn't sure what to say to him. It was weird. I've never seen him like that and I'm pretty sure it's not normal for him even though I haven't known him that long. He was just staring off into the distance so I went ahead is did what I would have done even if he hadn't been around. I started picking up wood.

I had brought the first load back to the house and was putting it in the barn when he limped out. I put the ax in the wheelbarrow and went back to the downed tree. I need wood and I figure at the rate I can get things done it will take me all summer and fall to keep up with my daily usage and get ahead to what I will need for winter.

There wasn't a lot of talk; mostly he was fussing at me in a kind of half-hearted way about not using the ax right when I was trying to get some bigger limbs off of the tree. And then fussing at how dull the ax was. I just let him 'cause getting angry seemed to do him more good than sitting around moping had.

After four loads though I had had enough of wood and his bossing me around. I knew when I started tuning him out that I was reaching my limit. I told him if he wanted to go whack at the tree some more and make himself feel better that was fine but I'd had enough of him whacking at me with his mouth and then I grabbed a bucket and went out to the orchard.

I'd picked half a bucket of berries when I started feeling bad about snapping at the poor guy. When I finished the bucket and walked back to the house he was sitting on the porch. "I'm sorry kid; I'm in a bad mood. That's no excuse to take it out on you. Laurabeth and Charlene would have already thrown something at me."

"Good for them. And I'm sorry too. I know you aren't feeling good … just … look, I know you won't like me bringing it up and I know it's none of my business. What Julia did was wrong, at least from what I know. I don't like her much now and I meant it when I said I didn't trust her any more. If you two do get back together and it makes you happy then fine but …" I didn't know how to tell him I thought the girl he was in love with was a less than polite word without hurting his feelings.

"Rand, I'm not real sure why you go to all this trouble to be my friend but … thank you. I could have figured things out eventually, but your family being nice to me has helped and I won't forget it. But Julia is another story. I'm not sure that she's a person I want to get to know so … whether you two get back together or not I'd appreciate it if you … look, I'm not comfortable with her knowing where I live or much of anything about me. Her being friends with people that did this to you and played dirty at it … I don't need that kind of trouble. I just … "

"It's OK. After this … I don't know if I could trust her very much either even though part of me still wants things to go back to the way they were before."

"Yeah, well, as long as we've got an understanding on that. I won't go out of my way to be rude to her if we wind up in the same places but … I can't promise not to pop off at her if she gets in my face. And that Freddie Harbinger … eeewwww."

"He didn't bother … "

"Oh relax. Nothing happened but let's just say he was living down to his reputation."

At least he was talking a little bit and not chewing me out. I thought while he was willing to talk (and eat the berries I was trying to prepare for making more juice) I'd ask him something that had been bothering me.

"Why was everyone so … I don't know … different I guess from on the work day?"

"Different how?"

"On the work day there was smiling and kidding … at least at first … but on market day everyone seemed to have the mully grumps."

"Mully grumps?"

"You know … they weren't talking to each other, no one was smiling, everyone was acting stressed out or sad or something."

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes and I thought he'd gone to sleep but then he said, "I guess you didn't hear did you?"

I wanted to ask him "Hear what?" but he went on pretty fast. Apparently Major Sawyer wasn't kidding when he said that command … whoever they are … wasn't happy about the near riot. That was the third town that there had been problems at and the second where civilian staff had been injured. All work days and other forms of community assistance had been summarily put on hold until further notice. On top of that – and unrelated despite people trying to say otherwise – is that rationing has gotten even tighter. The fact that there wasn't that much food at the market yesterday confirmed everyone's worst fears.

"Uncle George has been holding back cash for years to have a stash at home. He's just that way. But when the banks started going belly up in '09 he took out almost everything he had and put it in small bills and hid it. We had a blow up about it when I was home for spring break that year. I thought he'd gone crazy. They kept telling us at school everything would right itself with enough time. Turns out the old man is crazy all right … crazy like a fox. It's helped keep the pantry full but it's getting harder and harder. Laurabeth is doing her part and has started a garden and we have been having fresh stuff on the table but … were you serious about canning berries or were you telling Momma O a tale."

That drives me crazy. Right when I'm finally getting some answers to my questions Rand switches gears and starts asking me questions. I asked him what did he think I was doing with the berries in front of him, making a mess just to pass the time?

That got a grin out of him big enough to make him wince when his lip re-split but settled down and watched while I did all the work of cooking the blueberries and then dumping them in the jelly bag to drain. He kept talking while I worked so I didn't mind too much.

At first everything was all right. Work was hard to come by but you could still find it if you were willing to take a pay cut. The farm still managed to do all right because of the contracts that Uncle George already had in place. But when the contracts expired and they would only renew at less than 50% of what they had been previously things got tougher. The cost of feed went up, cost of fertilizers went up so that it almost wasn't worth trying to grow your own feed, what you could get for your cattle and crops was going down. Uncle George sold some of his cows at a loss just so he wouldn't have to watch them starve to death. He got rid of all but one of the big chicken houses. He hired family to help on the farm rather than pay the field hands he used to bring in seasonally. It was just stop gap measures. And then just when everyone thought things were turning around and that the pandemic was winding down the fourth wave hit and things went crazy all over. Bomb threats, actual bombs, food riots, no fuel to be found for miles at a time and what was available cost an arm and a leg, people dying of the cold over the winter, you name a bad thing it was happening.

"Uncle George locked down the farm and we didn't lose much but for a while there were regular battles with people trying to break into the barns and outbuildings. Jonathon's family all died and Uncle George had him moved out to the farm with us. Janet got so sick we thought we were going to lose her. The rest of us had already had the flu, I spent a week quarantined in my dorm during the second wave sick as a dog but Janet … There was no room at the hospital and Uncle George went about two weeks with no sleep, refusing to leave Janet's bedside. We thought we were going to lose him too for a while; he was having bad chest pains. We were all a mess but managed to pull through but you can see how Janet is. Uncle George is very careful with her and the only time she leaves the house is once a month for church. Jonathon can't stand to be away from Laurabeth for more than a couple of hours. And … and people started changing and it was hardly ever for the better."

Rand had been trying to keep up with what was going on out in the rest of the world outside Live Oak but news was scarce and what there was had been put through the washers before it was released to the public or was nothing more that flat out propaganda. There were detonations of regular type bombs in several major cities, another bad one in NYC, and it wasn't happening just in the US but all over the world. Israel has basically shut its borders and brought out the heavy artillery against those that oppose its existence.

"I've heard there was a nuclear bomb that had been aimed at Israel but something happened and it failed and came down in the country that fired it off. Uncle George said God swatted it down. I'm not sure what to think but after that the Middle East came unglued and we haven't gotten good info out of there since."

The rest of the world was also hurting pretty badly. When the US stopped sending aid workers and supplies to all those places it used to people started dropping like flies. China and Russia tried to step in take the US's place but it didn't take long before it change from humanitarian aid to true imperialism. People weren't any more grateful for China and Russia's help and would battle against them leaving those two countries fighting wars on too many fronts. Somebody goofed and somehow Russia and China came to nuclear blows with one another but there were only a few bombs dropped, That happened last month and everyone has been holding their breaths ever since. No one is certain whether a limited nuclear exchange will cause the weather problems that they predicted for all out nuclear war or if the misery they caused one another is just something to add on to the tally that the world is currently experiencing.

"Pretty much we are being told that most countries outside of the Middle East and Africa have turned turtle and are trying to just deal with their own country's problems. India and Pakistan are still posturing … do you get what I'm talking about?"

I told him I'd been in the IB program so I wasn't a complete idiot. I knew in general what shape the world had been in even if I didn't always understand why. Then he said, "Well then just let me say, anyone that thought they could win a fight decided the time had come to do take it outside and just do it … only a lot of those people and places found out their ego was bigger than their ability. It's caused a lot of misery around the world and we've still got a long way to go before things get better. And all we can do right now is try and survive our own troubles. So, since you seem to be at a stopping point let's go practice and see if you can get any closer to actually hitting the target."

Smart aleck. I was hitting the target before, just not those stupid little circles he drew. He made me shoot the rest of the bullets he had brought except for a handful. It didn't take very long. I felt pretty bad about using all of them up but he had me pick up the metal things that had come out of the gun after I fired each bullet (he was too sore to bend down and pick them up) and told me not to worry about it. He had a standing offer by a friend to come over and help him put in an addition on his house and in exchange he could use his reloading equipment.

I'm not sure what that means but I think it means taking the metal pieces and refilling them with the stuff that makes a bullet. Apparently if they are in good shape they can be reused a few times. "And Uncle George always kept extra ammo on hand just because when you are living on a working farm it is a good thing to do. And don't get your feathers ruffled, he's already told me it is OK to get you started. We'll have to figure out what Clyde will take for trade to get you your own supply but I'm thinking your cooking might be one thing he won't be able to turn down."

Clyde is a bachelor friend of Uncle George's and Rand. I kind of doubt that he'll trade for my cooking but it's worth a try. What can he say except "no"?

On our way back to the house it started to rain and we both got soaked. That meant that canning the blueberry juice was out and I fussed a little bit at it. I thought it was going to go to waste when Rand showed me how to keep it kind of cool and it lasted until I could get it done today. We put a large picnic cooler in the coolest part of the summer kitchen and filled it about half full of fresh, cold well water. Then we set the blueberry juice into the cooler and added water until the water covered all but the top of the jug I had poured the juice into. The lid of the cooler was able to close and when I checked it this morning it was still pretty cold. I'll have to see how I can use that for other stuff.

I had to use the last of my wood out of the inside wood box to make lunch with. I used a heavy skillet heated up and oiled good. I sliced the leftover grits and fried them on each side until they were golden crunchy. I opened up a jar of applesauce and that was lunch plus Rand ate even more blueberries.

I know that wasn't much of a lunch for Rand but it filled me up enough that I gave him most of everything. I was feeling a little closed in and awkward so I took a moment to step outside to get some more wood from the barn since it had stopped raining. When I came back in he was reading one of Momma's notebooks I'd left out on the counter in the summer kitchen. He asked for some paper and pencil and started making notes. He was involved with whatever he was doing … it was one of the Y2K books that I had pulled down to look at the recipes … so I went back outside and was looking for Fraidy. That's when I heard the jangling of a wagon coming.

I ran inside to get Rand and we came back just in time to hear Missy say, "Jonathon, if you made a wrong turn … " in a frustrated voice.

Rand grinned and limped out to meet them and I followed more slowly. I'm still not sure I like it when people come back to the house.

Long and the short of it was that Missy was going crazy stuck at her dad's home and had somehow convinced Jonathon to let her come along. She didn't look too bad; a scab on her forehead and a bandage on her wrist was all that I could see of her ouches. Jonathon had delivered whatever it was to the Henderson place and now he was ready to get home. Missy just needed a bit to "freshen up" and I didn't have much choice but to invite her around the fence. It was funny to see her mouth fall open but then she looked at me and grinned and said, "I swear I'll never tell but don't blame me if this isn't just the funniest thing … Julia is making it out like you are some poor little waif with nothing but the clothes on your back and lookie here."

She also gave me my ration book and repeated what Major Sawyer had said about if I had any points at the end of the month that I might be able to trade them in on allotments that hadn't been claimed. She told me from the look of things I was better off than a lot of folks and it got me worried enough for me to worry.

I told her that it wasn't just Julia that I didn't want knowing and asked her to please not go around telling people where I live or what I had (and didn't have). She answered me by saying, "Aw honey, I know, I'm just having a little fun. Trust me, I wouldn't have the job I have if I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I'm just happy to see Rand looks so much better … well, he sounds it anyway. What did you do?"

I hadn't done anything and told her so and she said that it didn't matter, Rand still seemed better than she had expected. "Sugar, it was awful. Daddy was getting really worried when dark started coming on and Rand wasn't back from the Winston place. He and Bill, that's Major Sawyer to you chickadee, took the wagon over to see if he'd even been there or if there was other trouble and they found him just lying in the yard." She had to draw breath she was so mad and I didn't blame her. "They'd just left him lying in the yard like he was an old dog. Thing is I don't think anyone had expected Bill to be there or I don't doubt they would have done something to Daddy too. Now they are trying to tough it out over what's happened but word has gotten around and the Winston and Harbinger families and their kin aren't having too much luck getting supplies up at the depot like they had been. And now word of that is spreading and people aren't sure what to do; they're looking for a side to pick and they thought Harbinger was it and now they find out he ain't nothing but a big … well, let's just say he isn't all that he was making himself out to be. Julia's Momma came over to ask why Daddy had set people against them. Daddy wasn't there but Laurabeth flat out told her that they should look in the mirror and think on what they had done if they wondered why people were starting to be set against them. She called Julia a … well, you never mind what she called that she-cat. Not everybody cares of course. Some people still think might makes right and are backing the Harbingers and their crowd but mark my words … "

Rand came around the corner and in a snippy voice said, "She doesn't need to mark them. None of this is her problem so just leave her out of it."

I still don't have a clue why Missy winked at me but it was kind of funny to see Rand huffing and puffing like that. Before they left I picked another bucket of blueberries and gave them to Jonathon to give to Laurabeth and Uncle George. When Rand started squeaking I told him it was either give them away or watch them fall to the ground in waste because I couldn't keep up with them. That only half way appeased him but Missy put an elbow in his ribs that took his breath away. He was still wincing when they headed home with Hatchet tied to the wagon.

I spent the rest of yesterday doing what I said and this morning I spent washing bedding and my clothes. The afternoon was spent canning more blueberries. They look like they are finally slowing down so I figure whenever something gets ripe I'll have a week or maybe two at the most to get as much done as I can before things give out. I could be wrong about the bigger fruit trees but I'm going to go with that in my planning. Anything more than that will be icing on the cake … or at least I think so.

The next thing that should get ripe is the blackberries and boysenberries. I love blackberries but until I finish with these blueberries I can't even get started on thinking about them no matter how much I want to. I've looked in Momma's books and most of her drying books are on using an electric dehydrator and that doesn't do me a bit of good though I did find Momma's dehydrator in with a box of other small appliances in the bonus rooms. There are a couple of designs for drying stuff without electricity but neither one is something I can do right now. One is a drying oven that uses a small fire underneath a big metal drum kind of thing. The other is a solar dryer but it uses plexiglass and screens and I'm not sure how well I can do that one either. Before I start a project like that I want to be sure that I can finish it.

Right now I've got the garden seeds to deal with that I traded for with Momma O. I know the garden plot isn't ready for me to plant in yet so I thought about something I saw in one of Momma's books called container gardening. Tomorrow I'm going back to those four houses and I'm going to grab all the dirt from the dead houseplants and stuff out of the sheds that might be useful. I'm going to use those barrels that the trees originally came in that are still sitting in the shed and I'm going to fill them up and plant those seeds. I haven't got anything to lose and a lot to win if it works.


	23. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

 **May 23** **rd** – Tired … tired, tired, tired. But feeling pretty good. I think I may have picked the last of the blueberries for canning. There are still some that are kind of pinkish like they are trying to ripen but not enough to really bother with except to use for fresh. Today I think I picked the last full bucket and had blueberry dumplings again with enough left over to can one more batch of blueberry preserves. I was reading Momma's notes and she made it out that blueberry season should last longer … like a whole month … but I can't see that happening unless you start counting from when the first one ripens until the last berry falls off the bush. The only other thing I can think of is that the bushes haven't been fertilized real regularly for the last two years and maybe that is why. I'll make note of it in my gardening calendar pages and will just have to see how it goes next year.

And there is going to be a next year. I'm feeling better and better about that. Today I went salvaging again. All four houses seemed to have at least a half bag of potting soil out in their sheds and some dead houseplants hanging around. While that seems kind of useless it isn't to me. Every little bit of dirt was a bit of dirt I didn't have to dig up by hand. Those big tubs were hard to fill. I think I made the right decision to line them up in the orchard. I don't know if that will keep the deer away but I hope so. The deer haven't found my fruit trees yet so maybe they'll overlook the containers too. Or maybe it is the tall gates and brambleberry hedges that have kept them out. Momma made some notes on deer that I need to read.

When I went salvaging the super neat little house gave me the most useful things. I guess who ever lived there was kind of yard proud though most of it is dried up and kind of crunchy now. There were several bags of top soil and potting soil and all sorts of odds and ends like fertilizers with different numbers on them, milorganite (treated sewage), bone meal, blood meal, lime, sphagnum moss, lots of specialty plant foods and lots of other science experiment kind of stuff that plants really like apparently. I'm not sure how all of that stuff is going to come in handy but I hauled it all back to the house. I figure when I do start a for real garden that this stuff will help me get a good start. I don't know what I'll do after that; I need to read more of Momma's gardening books and see what I can come up with.

Following some of Momma's hand written notes she said to get a tarp and put a shovel of top soil, a shovel of sand, and shove of potting mixture and keep doing that until I had what I needed for filling the pots. It got to be a mess on the tarp – I don't think Momma was thinking about anything but small pots – so I started mixing the stuff in the wheelbarrow so I wouldn't have to bend down so much or slice the tarp when I was trying to scoop it up with the shovel. I had twelve barrels to work with and that was a doggone lot of dirt to fill them up. My back and shoulders ache like I've been rearranging cases of frozen chicken parts for two weeks straight at the diner.

In the bottom of each barrel I put some old newspaper I had found to cover the big drainage holes so soil wouldn't fall out. I went to all that trouble to put it in there, I want it to stay in there. Next I added a layer of gravel that I shoveled out of house number one's drive way. I had to do it by the bucket full and dump it into the wheelbarrow. That was a treat. Not. Then it was time to start filling the pots with dirt. Whoa baby, I had no idea how much work that was going to be. It took me hours to get all of those things filled up and just as soon as I finished the last one it started to rain. All I can say is that the rain will save me from having to carry bucket after bucket of water to make the dirt all wet before I plant my seeds tomorrow.

I made myself practice shooting even though no one is around to make me. I haven't seen anyone … or heard anyone … since Rand and his family left. I'm hoping that is a good thing but after everything that Rand said about what is going on I don't know. And I don't know how many bullets I'm supposed to shoot when I practice so what I did was just fill each gun three times. The noise and the jumping of the guns don't bother me so much as they used to now that I know what to expect. The pistol … that Hi-something or other that was the gangbanger's gun … still feels funny in my hand and I'm not sure I'm standing right but I'm getting better.

The poor tree that I have been shooting at needed a break so I started lining up old cans I found on some tree stumps and rocks. I'm hitting the cans more often than not but I'm standing pretty close. Next time I practice I'll stand further back.

I finally have enough hot water to take a bath that wouldn't freeze a polar bear's tush off. That's where I am going because I'm tired of being dirty and stinky; and that's all for tonight.

 **May 24** **th** – I am sore today but all of the seeds are planted. I was starving this morning when I woke up so I fixed an omelet with cheese and onions. My breath wasn't pretty but my stomach was happy. There is a can of dried mushrooms so I might try and make a mushroom omelet someday soon.

Right after breakfast I grabbed my seeds and headed out to the orchard. I topped off a couple of the barrels that looked like the dirt had compacted down. I keep rethinking the fact that I'm not adding any fertilizer but I'm worried that could kill stuff before it even has a chance to grow. The potting mixture and top soil is already that Miracle-Gro brand that has fertilizer in it. I'll just have to keep an eye on things.

I planted four of the barrels with black eyed peas. I looked all over Momma's square foot gardening books for "black eyed peas" but didn't find it until I looked in the index and saw they are called "cowpeas" or "southern peas" by most people. For these seeds I could plant eight to a barrel since I was counting a barrel as a square foot; it was bigger than a square foot but I figured it would be too hard to do it any other way.

Three of the barrels I planted Lima beans in. Lima beans aren't my favorite but when you are hungry they are as good as anything else. I figured one of these days I might appreciate those lima beans so I planted them and I also sowed them eight seeds to a barrel.

The eggplants are kind of iffy. There were only a few seeds in that bag and the book said I should only sow one eggplant per square foot but I went ahead and planted two because the barrel is bigger than a square foot. I'm not partial to eggplant unless it has the slime factor fried out of them. Grilled they are OK and we sometimes did that at the diner but to be honest they just kind of give me the heebie jeebies. They look like pods that some alien laid or something. But again, if I'm hungry enough I'll eat them. I'm not that picky.

The cantaloupes were an even bigger problem. I love melon; I mean I would eat it every day for breakfast and dessert if I could. Momma used to make pickled cantaloupe and cantaloupe preserves too. But I remember Momma used to have to give those suckers room to grow when she planted them back in Tampa. They had runners on them that went every which a way. For the melons I planted two per barrel and planted three barrels of cantaloupes. If all six plants actually make I hope to have all the melon I can want … for a little while any way. I'm also going to plant some of the cantaloupe seeds in the flower beds that are on the sunny side of the house. Momma had Daddy dug that all out and put in good dirt so I'm pretty sure that it should be OK. I just have to take off the bark mulch and pull back the plastic that is underneath. Nothing has ever been planted in there, Momma just never got the chance and Aunt Wilma was never inclined to when she would only get to see it once a year.

Got another little afternoon shower so I didn't even have to cart water over. I think I'm going to set up a rain barrel out in the orchard so I don't have to carry water any more than necessary. We'll see.

By lunch I was hungry again and I was craving meat. I haven't really had any in a long while, not real meat. It could have been worse I suppose; I might not have the beans or the TVP to try and offset my craving. But sometimes when you want something that is all you want and no substitution will do. Like pizza, I think about pizza sometimes but I try not to. I know Momma used to make a pizza in the Dutch oven but I haven't had time to look for her recipe file yet … and it's gotta be there someplace, Momma was a bear for writing stuff like that down and adding it to her recipe collections.

I decided to crack open one of the cans of freeze dried chicken. What I saw when I opened the can didn't look too good but I figured that since I had already opened the can I had to use it. Glad I did because it actually wasn't too bad. I made chicken salad casserole. I wish I had some sandwich bread or crackers but I made some pan biscuits and they weren't bad either.

First I took two cups of the freeze dried chicken, two cups of freeze dried celery, and two teaspoons of dried chopped onion and rehydrated them. I wish I hadn't used so much celery but I thought it was a good idea at the time to stretch everything else. I also rehydrated a cup of freeze dried cheddar cheese and that was kind of weird looking but actually turned out good. I wondered why Daddy had bought all that freeze dried cheese on top of all of the powdered cheese but now I think I know … just don't eat it straight out of the can, I tried it and I almost couldn't make myself swallow it. Major double eeewww.

I dumped the chicken, celery, and onion into the Dutch oven and added some salt, some sweet hot dog relish from some packets I had collected along my trek, and about a cup of mayo. I'm in trouble with the mayo though because it has to be refrigerated after opening and I didn't think about that until it was too late. It's a small jar and I put it in the cooler with well water so I hope that it keeps until I can use the rest, I just don't know what I'm going to use it for yet.

After I got all of that mixed up I put the rehydrated cheese on top and then sprinkled some crushed potato chips on top of that from that stash of junk food from the fourth house. I'm probably going to wake up with another zit in the morning but I don't care. A girl needs her junk food every once in a while.

I baked the casserole kind of chicken salad thing in the Dutchie for fifteen minutes by putting hot coals on the top of the lid as well as around the bottom. I checked it but it needed a few more minutes and then it was done. There was a lot more of it than I had expected. I had it for lunch and dinner and there was still a spoonful left that I just couldn't force myself to eat so I gave it to Fraidy. She picked out all the chicken and left the celery. I've never had leftovers before. I dug a hole outside and buried them. So today's lesson is to be careful about how much I cook. It might have not been very wasteful this time but next time I could do worse … so I don't want to have a next time.

The casserole leftovers made me wonder how Rand is doing. I never really had a bunch of friends but I could always pick up the phone and call someone if I wanted to know how they were doing. Now I guess if I want to know I'll have to find another way. I'm thinking about riding my bike over there and paying a visit but I don't know yet. I wasn't invited exactly, only in an emergency. But maybe if I find something that could be useful to them it would be OK.

I can at least tell Rand that I'm practicing … oh, wait, I can't because he doesn't know about all of Daddy's ammo. Maybe I could tell him that I found some more, but that would be kind of lying. Maybe I can just give him blank face if he says something' that usually drives people crazy and they start going off about something else and we get off the subject I didn't want to talk about. I guess I'll just have to play it by ear.

Before I closed up for the night I put some beans to cooking in the ground. I'll have beans tomorrow but instead of rice I'm going to fry some cornbread. I'm getting a little sick of rice. I'm thinking that instead of trying to plan my menu day-by-day I should try and plan it for the whole week and that way I wouldn't get so burned out on stuff.

 **May 25** **th** – I'm bored. OK, not really, but yes I am. No fruit to pick, no plants to plant, no cows to feed, no reason to cook much because I did most of it the night before. I spent the first half of the day picking up wood. I'm not going through as much since I'm not canning but since I know I'm going to need it shortly for the blackberries I might as well get a jump start.

I tried using the ax on the downed tree but could only whack off some of the smaller branches. I wound up using one of Daddy's saws and got a lot more done that way. I stopped when the wind picked up. For some reason I'm scared the tree is going to roll over on me if I cut the wrong limb. Maybe stupid, maybe not … better safe than sorry.

The wind brought rain with it so I've been stuck inside. I had to dig my beans out in the rain which was so not fun but at least they were ready and not still crunchy. I fried up cornbread on the grill and to make it a little different I added some seasoning to the batter.

I took a box of cornbread mix, added powdered eggs and powdered milk, then added a little poultry seasoning and close to a cup of water to get the batter just the right consistency. After that it is easy, you just cook dollops of it the same way you would pancakes. Next time I won't add quite so much poultry seasoning … it was a little too much something … but it made a nice change and it helped with the beans since they turned out a little bland because I didn't add enough salt.

I was at loose ends once it started raining so I cleaned around the house but I'd been picking up after myself as I went so there wasn't that much to do. The kind of stuff that was left like dusting and sweeping I just wasn't in the mood for doing. I did sweep off the front porch and the lanai but that didn't take long and I was at loose ends again.

With all the extra time I had I decided to look through some more of Daddy's and Momma's notes. I've got a ton of ideas and absolutely no way to get them done. Daddy had notes on how he would build a stockade around the house but it included using the PTO on the tractor to dig the holes and fence posts and wood that he planned on buying … that never happened. There were notes on expanding the solar power by buying more panels and whatsiwhosits but that never happened either. He was going to have a big propane tank brought in and filled and a kerosene tank too but … well, you get the picture. My parents had a lot of plans but ran out of time to accomplish them. I guess that happened to a lot of people.

Now I have to make my own plans and they don't include having access to a ton of fuel like Mr. Henderson seems to. They don't include being able to power my house with solar panels, though I'm sure there are people somewhere that are doing that. I don't have a ton of anything. They sure don't include going the way of the Harbingers and just taking what I need from other people.

I need to figure out how to get enough that doesn't include the expectation of it being given to me for nothing in return or finding it lying out with no one else already claiming it. I might be able to put that "abandoned property" rule to good use but not for food.

Work smarter, not harder. I have to think like that all the time now. One of the things I thought about came from a funny place. I was rearranging some of the books up in the bonus room I want to turn into a library when I ran across my old Little House on the Prairie books. I read the paper back versions until they fell apart so for my tenth birthday Daddy bought me the whole series in hardback. While I was remembering that I thought about Ma Ingalls. Momma always reminded me of Ma Ingalls. She was sweet and could do all this stuff for our family and kind of kept us together.

One of the other similarities between Momma and Ma Ingalls was how they did house work. Both of them had specific tasks for each day of the week. I vaguely remember asking Momma about it one time and she said that she had learned it from her mother and that it was just the way women used to do things before so many of them went off to work outside the home. She said it helped keep things neat and organized. I think I'm going to do that as well. It will at least keep me from having to guess at what I need to put on my daily chore list.

Ma Ingall's Chore List goes like this:

"Wash on Monday,

Iron on Tuesday,

Mend on Wednesday,

Churn on Thursday,

Clean on Friday,

Bake on Saturday,

Rest on Sunday."

Well, I can tell you I'm not ironing anything if I can help it. I have Momma's old sadirons but no way I am going to iron my t-shirts and blue jeans, there's no sense to it. And the sheets and bedding get pretty straight on the clothes line and I sure as heck am not going to iron towels and washcloths. That would just be plain silly. And if there are a few wrinkles in things there is no one but me around to see them and I never cared too much about that stuff.

Mending might be a good chore to keep but I think I'll change it to a sewing day. Momma taught me to sew and one of my grandmothers taught me to crochet while the other taught me to cross stitch and do needle point. I need practice but I know I can do it because I would always do something like that for Aunt Wilma as a Christmas gift. It seemed to surprise her every year that I'd go to the trouble when I could just buy something at the store. And I'd make new pillow cases for Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie every year for their anniversary and Aunt Wilma actually used them so they couldn't be that terrible.

I don't have a cow to churn butter from so that one is out and not much reason to bake bread either right now since I can just make biscuits as I need them. I am going to keep the wash day and the cleaning day but I'm going to switch it around some.

So here is my cleaning chore list:

Gather wood on Monday

on Tuesday

Sew on Wednesday

on Thursday

Clean on Friday

Wash on Saturday

Rest of Sunday

I'm not sure what I need to do on Tuesday and Thursday yet. I know I'll figure it out sooner or later. I have a bunch of daily stuff I have to do like dishes, cooking, taking care of Fraidy (when she lets me), gardening, preserving food (if everything grows like it is supposed to), and then I've got some ideas of other things I want to do as well.

Today is Thursday which makes tomorrow Friday and a cleaning day. But I've already cleaned everything pretty well except for dusting and moping. What I am going to do tomorrow is go salvaging at the houses for book cases. If I can't find ready-made book cases that I can move by myself I might try taking them apart and then putting them back together. If that fails I'm hoping to find something that I can use to build book cases with.

That is probably going to take most of tomorrow, but it should count as something that goes with cleaning day. I'll be getting the books up off the floor upstairs.

 **May 26** **th** – The only thing that makes this stupid goose egg in the middle of my forehead worth getting is I now have a whole wall of book cases up stairs that match. I found them in three different houses. The one house – the little neat house – that I thought would give me exactly what I needed wound up giving me nothing; well, except for some book ends that have come in handy. All of the books cases at that house were either these big, heavy things that I would never be abe to move or were built into the wall.

I found three in the first house, two more in the really messy house, and then three of them in the fourth house that always gives me a funny feeling to be in. I guess they were having a sale at Walmart and everyone must have got them at the same time. Two of them are painted black and the rest are stained to look like wood. OK, so they aren't as fancy as the ones at the neat little house but I could move them and that is about all I care about at this point. They have a Better Homes & Gardens sticker on them so they can't be that awful.

Once I had found the first ones in the first house (one was in the girl's room, one in the boy's room and one out in the living room) I had to unload all of the stuff on them. That was kind of depressing. In the boy's room there was a girly magazine and a pack of cigarettes. I would have laughed if it hadn't been so sad. It seems the stories about some boys hiding stuff like this from their parents were really true and not just silliness you saw in the movies.

The empty shelves weren't really heavy, not at first anyway, but they were awkward to carry and I wound up having to take the shelves that were adjustable out of them. That's how I came by the goose egg. I was moving a book case around and one of the shelves slipped out and conked me in the forehead. I was bent over trying not to cry like a baby … who was there to see anyway … when I looked under a table slid up against the kitchen wall and spotted a box full of cans of cat food and some kitty litter. That explains the boy cat smell in the house.

The three shelves from that house smelled just a little but by the time I got them back to the house using my handy dandy wheelbarrow technique of moving, they were already smelling OK. I left them out on the front porch for good measure until I went back for the other book cases.

After I moved all the junk off of a book case and then got it out of the house it generally took me twenty minutes to get it to my fence, heft it over and then use the wheelbarrow to get it the rest of the way home. Even that got easier though when I found a dolly at the messy house. So yeah, figure an average of twenty to thirty minutes per book case just to move them. I was at the moving part almost four hours and that didn't include finding them, unloading them of whatever was already on them and then getting them out of the house. The fourth house was a real trip because I had to move so much stuff just to get to the book cases and then move even more just to get the book cases out of the house.

I was another hour and a half figuring out how to get the book cases up stairs because the stairwell was closed in and made a right hand turn half way up. It made me understand why the lawyer hadn't kept more of our furniture from the house in Tampa.

I took a short break and went practice shooting. My head hurt so bad that every time I shot my head felt like someone was hitting my forehead with a hammer. I didn't even practice as much as I should have, I just couldn't stand it.

After I finally got them upstairs it was smooth sailing. I had already put the books in piles the way I wanted them on shelves so all I had to do was load the bookcases and stand back and admire what I had managed to accomplish all by myself. It would have been nice to show off to someone else but that wasn't going to happen so I decided I was finished working for the day and went back downstairs, took care of my dinner and mess and then grabbed some of Momma's books and came up to the dormer room to review my day.

One of the things that I need to think on is where to move all of the photo boxes that I found. Well, I thought they were photo boxes but I knocked the lid off of one – I'll admit I've been avoiding looking in them – and the box didn't have photos in it but oversized index cards. Each index card was a different recipe. Each of the two dozen photo boxes held different types of recipes. One box was marked beverage, another was marked "fish & seafood," and another that said "game." Each of the boxes also had dividers in there that separated stuff; like in the "game" box there were tabs for venison, boar, alligator, and a bunch of other stuff I have a hard time imagining that I would eat. Some of the boxes looked like they were labeled the same, like there were two marked "fowl." But, one of them said "fowl-chicken" and the other said "fowl-other."

I pulled out a couple of the index cards and they are all in my mother's handwriting. I can't for the life of me remember these things; I know she collected recipes and cookbooks but … it bothers me that I don't remember these. They must have been a lot of work and they must have been important to her. You'd think I could remember something about a collection like this. Now I wonder if I have lost more memories than I thought or if I was just more clueless than I thought. I miss my mother. I wish she was here for me to ask. How am I supposed to figure all of this stuff out without her?

 **May 27** **th** – I was kind of out of it when I woke up this morning. I kept dreaming about my parents and little brother. But it was all pictures and no sound and I kept asking them what they were saying but they just laughed and kept on talking like I was funning them. What made it worse was that I knew absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt what they were saying was important but I couldn't hear them. I woke up at four o'clock bad sick to my stomach and I barely got to the trash can before I puked up a bunch of acid. It's been a long time since I did that. I mean I've puked but not acid from being stressed out. I used to take Tagamet and Zantac it was so bad. I hope I'm not doing that again. I plan on being real careful, there is no doctor for me to visit to fix it.

I drank a glass of milk real slowly and then went outside to try and clear my head. Fraidy thought it was cool that I was outside so early. She kept rubbing against my leg to get some attention. When the sky was pink enough that I could walk around without tripping over stuff I walked out to the orchard to get the kinks out of my muscles and to check on things. I pulled off a cupful of berries and took them back to the house with me.

I think the garden is going to take the place of the cows as far as work goes. I am watering the containers every day that it doesn't rain. Since it didn't rain yesterday or today I had to water … which meant running back and forth to the rain barrel. I think I will try and move a rain barrel out there. I saw a drawing in one of my dad's notebooks on make a "tarp funnel" for a rain barrel to catch water. I wonder if that is why Daddy bought all of these tarps I keep finding all over the place. There is a bunch of them stacked in his hidden storage room in the barn. One of them was nibbled on by something but the others were just fine. I found tarps at the four salvage houses too; it will be a long time before I run out of those suckers.

The blueberries I kind of stewed into a filling while I gathered together what I needed to start the day. When the berries were finished I made a little pat-in-the-pan crust … a real easy pie crust that you just kind of use your hands to make and pat out. It's not pretty like a rolled crust is but it's hard to make a mistake with it. Then I made fried pies. Fried pies are really easy. Pinch off some dough, flatten it out, put your filling in the middle, fold one half over and seal it with a fork around the edges. Then you just fry in a skillet of butter. I had powdered butter and I had non-stick spray flavored like butter. I went with the non-stick spray. I made enough fried pies for breakfast and lunch. They were good. I remember when I was really little and watching my Aunt Flossie (my grandfather's sister) make them for the first time. She stood me up on a chair and I got to stand right by the stove and flip them all by myself. I thought I was hot stuff.

Today is Saturday and I kept to my new schedule once I had gotten up and moving; I washed clothes. I didn't have a lot to wash so I went over my whole "wardrobe" and made a list of things that I needed or could use more of. I also decided to go back to the salvage houses and grab anything that was made of jean material and to try and fill in the gaps I was finding in my wardrobe. I found Momma's pattern for making jean skirts out of old blue jeans and I am determined that once I can figure out how to fix the treadle sewing machine that I am going to make that blue jean quilt.

My problem is under things. I wonder what other girls are doing. The elastic is going in two of my bras and I'm a little bit on the bosomy side so it's not like I can just go without. And it is kind of freaking me out thinking about having to wear someone else's. It doesn't look like I'm going to have any choice except that there weren't any that fit me in any of those houses. The idea of traipsing around the county looking through a bunch of abandoned houses hoping to find something that will fit me the way it is supposed to is just … icky.

There was a stall at the farmer's market that had all these bras and slips and stuff hanging on strings between the poles holding up a canopy and there was more stuff laying on tables but I didn't really look at what they had. There were women and girls over there though, and a couple of men too that just handed lists to the lady manning the stall; I guess they were shopping on behalf of their womenfolk. I just couldn't bring myself to look and now I wish I had. I need to get over myself I guess.

After I hung the last load of blue jeans that I washed out to dry I made myself practice double since I had cut it short yesterday. I took five steps back from where I normally stand and it took me several tries before I could hit the cans again. I finally remembered that I should save all the "spent casings" of the bullets. By the time I picked up all I could find it was time to go back to the house and check to see if I could bring the clothes in off of the line and to start myself some dinner. Nothing sounded good so I just ate granola and dried fruit. I know I shouldn't skimp while I've got the food to eat but it's just not as much fun eating by myself, it's just more work.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I think I'm going to give biking over to see the Crenshaws a try. Laurabeth seems the type that wouldn't die of embarrassment if I asked her about bras. And if Missy is still there I know she'll clue me in. Besides, I'm interested in seeing what they did with the blueberries and whether Rand's face has healed up.


	24. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

 **May 28** **th** – So much for biking to see the Crenshaws. I woke up to rain and it has been raining off and on all day long. There isn't much I can do in the rain … maybe should say there isn't much I should do in the rain. I don't want to get sick after all. So I stayed inside. I was going a little nutty and thinking about breaking the schedule that I had set myself when I realized I could use the extra down time to look through some more of Momma and Daddy's books. I would still be "resting" from hard labor but using my time wisely … I even read an old Sunday School lesson that Daddy had stuck in his notes on stewardship that gave me a lot to think about.

I noticed yesterday that the blackberry canes were really starting to fill out. A couple of more days … maybe … and I'll be back to canning like a lunatic. The question is again though what to can and how much of it? Blackberry juice for sure and that is made the same way as the blueberry juice I canned up. And I also want to make up some Blackberry Vinegar because that is what Momma always let me drink when I had a fever that wouldn't go away. One of the good things about the vinegar I realized after reading the recipe is that it is made with honey and not white sugar. This will be a recipe that saves me sugar.

The other stuff that is on the list of options for canning include: blackberry syrup, pickled blackberries, blackberry shrub, blackberry jam, blackberry-honey jam, blackberry catsup, spiced blackberry jelly, whole blackberries, and just for the heck of it since so far it looks like I'm going to be drowning in blackberries I want to try and make blackberry chutney. I don't know what I'll get to eat it with but it might be a nice gift … for friends and stuff I mean, like the Crenshaws or Major Sawyer or even Pastor Ken.

The blackberry-honey jam uses honey instead of sugar as the sweetener and preservative. I'm going to make a batch of each and see which one I like the best. I'm still hunting for great grandmother's non-alcoholic blackberry cordial recipe. At Christmas time, even all of us younger kids were allowed a little sip of this and then we poured the rest of it over the homemade yellow cake we always had for dessert.

I also took some time to fill in more of my big calendar. After the blackberries and boysenberries ripen the beginning of June I should start seeing plums by the middle of the month, but Momma's notes say that not all of the trees should ripen at the same time. That will be cool if it happens, there are a few different plum trees out there and I'm not sure I could keep up with them if they all ripen at once. I've got the trees all labeled now and it looks like all of the trees have baby fruit on them but some are falling off too. I think that is supposed to happen … a natural thinning process that lets the fruit that doesn't fall off get bigger and stay healthy. But birds will knock fruit off too and so will rain and storms. This is crazy, it's a wonder there is any fruit left for people to eat with all that goes on.

Before the end of the month I have to pull out Momma's tree nets and put them over some of the trees. Like the pie cherry tree that is supposed to start making at the end of June. The middle of July I should be able to eat apples, assuming I have time to eat because right after the apples Momma's wrote I should start looking for the nectarines and something called rabbit-eye blueberries … which I have no clue what she is talking about. I thought blueberries were blueberries and if she planted some someplace else I have to find out where. Figs should also start appearing the middle of July but I haven't a clue whether I like them or not. I like fig newton cookies but … what else do you use figs for?

Pears and peaches will come the beginning of August. Crabapples are the beginning of September and the grapes are supposed to be ready then too. October is more apples with persimmons the beginning of November. It doesn't look like I'm going to slow down until December which is OK but I'm going to need something besides fruit to eat. I'm trying to figure out when the seeds I got from Momma O fit into the calendar of things to expect and do. I would really like stuff besides that to eat but where do I get the seeds? I wonder if Momma O has more and if she would be willing to trade some fresh fruit for the seeds.

I also need to find out when the pecans are supposed to be ready. Momma said that some of the pecan trees start dropping nuts as early as the beginning of October but that sometimes you won't get any pecans at all either because the trees don't make or because the squirrels get them all before you can get any. I think that I've found the chestnut trees that we planted. Momma's notes say they should start dropping in September but when I haven't a clue. Usually Momma wrote early, mid, or late but not for this one which must mean she didn't know exactly when or that the tree has a mind of its own and drops when it wants to.

According to Momma's notes I missed the Mayhaw season. They ripen the end of April or the beginning of May. I guess I just missed it or the birds got them all or something. Then there are other things I'm running across. Why couldn't she put everything in one place? I keep finding answers to some of my questions only to wind up with more questions and no idea where to look for the answers.

Let's see, there is something called a Pignut Hickory I am supposed to have several of in the tree line in the widest section of the main road but I don't have any pictures of what the leaves look like so how am I supposed to know what is a hickory and what isn't? Momma said there are two mockernut trees someplace as well. What the heck is a mockernut?! The other trees that are someplace on the property are American Beech, elm, holly, white cedar, red cedar, blackjack, camphor, chinkapin, and I don't know what all since I haven't finished reading that part of Momma's notes.

Daddy's stuff is practical the same as Momma's, just about different stuff. His notes are on attracting and hunting wild game like deer, turkey, quail and gator. But he also had in there how to do things like catch armadillos and boars (that's a feral pig I think). The best way to skin a snake and eat it pretty much grossed me out but I guess if you are hungry it's better than eating air. He's got notes for taking care of livestock but a lot of that includes things I don't know if I could do like trimming the cow's toenails or how to not irritate a llama so it won't spit at you. I had no idea my dad even cared enough about llamas to find out how to keep one from spitting on him.

Some of my parents' notes just seem so out there. Maybe they were just gathering every bit of information they came across and would have at some future point gone through it to see what they really could use and what they couldn't. Like I can understand why Daddy would have notes for building a smoke house or how to build the solar stuff even but I don't get why he would want to know how to pan fry grasshoppers. With Momma around I just don't see having to go that far.

Only I guess Momma isn't around and neither is Daddy. I hope things never get so bad that I have to eat bugs. Maybe that's why they saved information like that … for just in case. But man, I hope that type of thing never comes around for me. The very idea of eating that stuff makes me want to gag.

 **May 29** **th** – It was nice to not do any real hard work yesterday but it sure made picking up wood today hard. The wood being wet didn't help either. And there has got to be a better way of chopping that stuff up that doesn't make you feel like your arms are going to fall off at the end of the day. Matter of fact, I think I'm just going to go to sleep. I've added ten more wheelbarrows full of small wood to my piles … and laid it out neater too … and I sawed a bunch of bigger logs off of the fallen tree. Those I had to saw into chunks no longer than half the length of my leg or I couldn't lift them up into the wheelbarrow to bring back to the house.

I know those pieces are too big for the fireplace but I couldn't cut them with the ax. I managed to cut a couple of the logs in half lengthwise with the saw but they wouldn't stand still so that I could cut the halves in half. I know it isn't supposed to be this hard. I've got to be doing something wrong. If I see Uncle George or maybe Rand at the end of the month ration book thing I'll ask them, and just hope they don't laugh at me.

 **May 30** **th** – I have a new friend. He's a little fond of his own voice but I think I can live with it. Fraidy isn't too sure she likes him but on the other hand she licks her lips every time she comes near. It's a rooster. A little one too. I don't mean young I mean little. I think he is what is called a Banty rooster. He sure seems full of himself.

I can't believe how easy it was to catch him. I just put a bowl of blueberries in an old dog cage that Daddy built near the barn … it was supposed to be a dog run but we never got any dogs to put in it.

That bird thinks he is hot snot and is crowing like crazy. I hope he doesn't draw the bad kind of attention from something that might try and catch him. I mean he's a funny little thing but not exactly an indoor pet. I helped Daddy build the dog run … rooster run now … so I know nothing can dig up under and get to Pretty Boy. That's what I named him, "Pretty Boy." Daddy set the big cyclone fence posts down in concrete footers that wrap around the whole run. They go down two feet if I remember. Daddy said he didn't want dogs he put in there being able to dig their way out or something to dig their way in. I think he was thinking about breeding hunting dogs like my grandfather used to. Granddaddy always kept his best hunting dog Queenie away from the boy dogs when she was in heat or when she was having puppies. I liked Queenie, she was a bird dog and just about as sweet a dog as I've ever been around but some of her puppies were nasty little boogers; they were always biting my ankles when I went out to help Granddaddy feed them.

I didn't know what to put in Pretty Boy's new home but he's a bird and I figured he might like a branch or something. Once he got over his indignation at me dragging a big log in there so he'd have something interesting to look at he really took to it. He's so funny; he looks like an oversized canary when he hops up in the branches and starts crowing. I put some cut grass near the log but I'm not sure if roosters nest the same hens do. I'm also not sure what roosters eat. I know they can free range like a cow ... well, that's what Daddy's notes say anyway … but I don't know what they actually eat. Bugs maybe? Pretty Boy liked the blueberries well enough but I don't think he could live on them. He certainly has had fun scratching around in all the leaves at the bottom of the dog run but I'm not sure if that's a good thing either. And the big dog watering contraption I found in Daddy's junk room seemed to suit him as well. It was one of those things you fill up and then turn upside down and as the dog licks the water up it refills itself until the jug is all gone.

I also built a compost bin after I practiced shooting. It's kind of lame looking compared to the ones in Momma's books but I think it will get the job done. My materials came from the second house. I think the pallets out in back of their patio used to hold sod as there were a couple of squares of dried up grass sitting on one. There were three of them. I looked around for something that would make a gate or door for the fourth side and didn't find anything. Some of the examples of compost bins only have three sides so I guess that is OK.

It was a pain trying to get all three sides to stand up so I finally had get the post hole digger and take two pieces of scrap rebar and bury them standing upright on each end of the "U" the wooden pallets made once I had wired them together at the corners. I tried nailing them together but I kept spitting the wood.

After I got the bin to stand up I put a layer of dry crunched up leaves on the bottom. Next came some green grass cuttings. They were kind of long when I cut them with the swing blade so I tried to chop them up with a hoe into smaller pieces, not sure it worked too well but it didn't work bad either. On top of this is supposed to go green kitchen waste, unfortunately I don't have any yet. If I had built the compost bin sooner I would have put the leftovers from where I made blueberry juice and stuff but at least now I know what to do with the leftovers from all of my other canning that is going to be coming down the road. I tried to make up for the lack of kitchen green stuff by pulling weeds around the acreage. There was a bunch of dollar weed by the gully and I went up there to pull it. There was also a bunch of weeds in the ditches beside my front gate so I went up there too. I needed to check on things anyway.

When I was up there I hid in the bushes when I heard a wagon coming. "You can come out of the bushes girl, I already saw ya."

Mr. Henderson was grinning so I didn't figure it couldn't be too bad. He got nosey and wanted to know how I'd been doing and if I was keeping busy. I told him I was fine and busy enough. He laughed and called me full of sass when I asked how he'd been doing and what he'd been up to. He said he couldn't keep his cattle standing but that if I wanted to get in on the ration book exchange tomorrow I'd better get there early in the morning … before first light if I could manage it … because he heard a lot of people were going to try and come up and get whatever it was they could. I asked him if he was going to be there and he said "nope" and left it at that. He also told me that they were making people check all of their weapons before entering the distribution area so I had to be prepared for that and he also warned me to make sure I got back what I checked in, including the same number and type of bullets.

He left after telling me to mind my p's and q's because his granddaughter shared that Julia Winston still wasn't too happy I'd gotten away with talking to her that way at the market. I wasn't surprised; I hadn't meant to be gentle but to make a point. I just wondered how far out of her way she was going to trash what little reputation I might have claim to. I was also wondering if she had decided that the pasture was greener with Rand and if so, what she planned to do about the mistake she had made … and what Rand would think of it all.

So, that is why I'm going to bed so early tonight. If there is going to be a big crowd like there was at the market and at work day I'm going to have to start walking at four in the morning. I'd ride the bike but at some point on the trip I must have picked up a bunch of sandspurs; the front tired is completely flat and the back tire is half way there. I found that out tonight when I was taking it out of the barn. Wouldn't you know it? Just when I remembered to use it, it isn't useable.

And, though it was a hard decision to make I'm going to take some of that change out of Daddy's collection jars. Something just doesn't set right with me about getting something for nothing. It's like before I knew those four houses fell under the heading of abandoned property. I felt guilty. I might only be able to get one or two things but it will be one or two things on my own terms. I worry about losing my independence; like all those strings that Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie tried to tie on me because they were the ones that stepped up and took me in. And when people give you something for nothing they eventually want something in return at some point. I'd rather pay the price up front that I can afford than have a debt like that hanging over my head for who knows how long.

I made extra pan biscuits with dinner so I'll have them for breakfast. I've already made a nosebag of granola and dried fruit and also put a miniature block of summer sausage and small block of cheese from the Swiss Colony supplies. I've got a canteen of water but I'm not going to bother flavoring it this time. My nerves have my stomach tumbling and I don't need any more reason to get an acid upset stomach.

 **May 31** **st** – I woke up bright and early this morning. Well, early … not so bright. My guess is that three-thirty in the morning doesn't look pretty on anybody. It was too early for breakfast so I stuck the biscuits in one of the big pockets on what I'm calling my traveling vest (the hunting vest I wore at the farmer's market) and my lunch foods in the other one in case I had to be out long.

The mist was heavy so I wasn't too worried about my seeds; besides, it was too dark to go tripping around with a watering can. Even Pretty Boy and Fraidy were still asleep when I put my feet to the road. It was so quiet it was spooky. This is how it had been when I was escaping from Tampa. The closer I got to US90 the more noise I could hear. People were already plodding down the road to get in line. Not a lot but enough. With people around it was even spookier, we were like ghosts all traveling in the same direction.

I guess we were all lucky that there were no clouds and the moon was bright. Everybody was moving slow so it wasn't like I was going to be run over but I kept looking around every few minutes just to make sure. No one was talking and from what I could see of people's faces, no one was in the mood to talk so I kept to myself and out of the way as much as possible.

I came up to a girl, a little older than me, that was carrying a little kid. Her shoe was untied and she was trying to balance the toddler and bend down at the same time. I taped her on the shoulder and made motions that I would tie it. When we kept walking it was side by side. We still didn't say anything, not even when we got in line to enter the distribution area.

The line hadn't started moving yet when the little kid shook a sippy cup that was tied to a string and said, "Thirsy Momma, so thirsy." The girl looked like she was about to cry. I didn't see any canteen or anything. I took the cup, figured out how to get the lid off and poured water to fill it up. The kid almost couldn't wait for me to make sure the lid was back on before he started sucking on it frantically. The girl looked ashamed but I didn't know what to say so I just shrugged. When I offered her the canteen she jumped and shook her head like I was offering her poison or something.

Finally the line started moving and the poor little kid laid his head down and went back to sleep. It wasn't until we got inside the gate that the girl looked at me and said thank you but I only knew it because the sky had finally started to lighten and I could read lips. She turned and left in a hurry before I could say, "Your welcome." She disappeared into the crowd while I was still signing in my rifle.

Once I was passed the check in point I was at a loss what to do and then I saw his big ol' flat top off over to the side. A young man in a khaki-colored t-shirt got the Major's attention when he nodded my direction. "Well, hello there Shorty. Missy was wondering if you'd show up today or not."

It was awful hard to ignore the Shorty remark but I guess he does that to a lot of people considering he is well over six foot. I asked him if I could ask him something and he said sure and we stepped off to the side. I told him I wanted to do things the right way and try and pay for my share. He gave me one of those condescending, "isn't she cute" kind of looks some guys can give. Well, he did until I showed him the change I had stuck in a Ziploc bag. I told him I had forty dollars in change and I wanted to pay my own way.

He looked at the change a little more closely than I thought was necessary then he shoved the bag back into my vest and walked me over to a portable building and took me inside. He nodded to some guy in there working on a radio and then had me sit down in his office. I thought he was going to exchange it for sand dollars but instead asked me where the money had come from. I told him, I trust the Major but he doesn't have to know that there is more where that came from.

What he said surprised me though, "Girl, that's more than change you have in your pocket. That's silver in those old coins. And that could get you in lots of big, big trouble."

I didn't understand and he told me that the federal government had been confiscating privately owned precious metals for about two months, including old coins and something he called blanks. I tried to tell him it was just coins I took out of my father's collection jar. He said, "Be that as it may, you put that stuff back where ever you found it and then lose it for a while … a long while. If people find out that I've seen it and not confiscated it I could get in trouble too."

I don't want the Major to get in trouble so it was easy enough to do what he asked me to do. I got up to leave when he said, "Where are you going?"

I told him home since I didn't have any money to spend. That's when we went round and around about the stupid ration book. I tried to explain to him that I didn't want to take something for nothing and why but I don't think he got it because he kept scratching his head and finally said, "Lord, preserve me from innocents and idealists."

I don't think Major Sawyer has a high opinion of too many people. The next thing he said to me kind of confirmed that. "Look here girl … Kiri ... a lot of those people out there waiting their turn to suck up what is left over from the monthly rations aren't thinking twice about what that means. Most of them keep expecting to get this kind of help week after week, month after month, until things get back to normal. They don't care. They feel entitled. You know what that means?"

Of course I know what that means. Just because I'm a teenager doesn't mean I'm stupid. The look on my face must have been enough to let the Major know that I did because he continued, "You've heard of the story of the ant and the grasshopper … tell me they haven't taken that out of the curriculum too … good. You know the moral of the story. Well, I would say at least three-quarters of those people out there are nothing but grasshoppers. They are only thinking about today, maybe tomorrow, next week at the most. Anything beyond that they are either too scared to think about or are positive that things are going to get better, back to normal."

He took a deep breath and looked like he was chewing over what he wanted to say. I thought he'd almost given up saying anything at all and then, "Kiddo, things aren't going to get better next month. Not next year either. Probably not for another five or ten years if then. I mean, things might get better at an individual level, but at a collective level it's going to be a very long while before the world can get anywhere near back to where we were before this whole mess started, and that's if things don't get much worse than they are right now. There are too many people in the world with weapons they have no business being in charge of. Did Rand tell you about China and Russia? Well, things are worse than we knew at first. Our satellites are still working and all over the world there are … "

"Wars and rumors of wars?"

"Hell kid, don't go all freaky on me."

"Uh, sorry. Just seemed appropriate."

"Yeah, more appropriate than I'm comfortable with so don't worry about it. I'm due to retire in six months. I had thought about staying in, I'm not that old, but now that I've met Missy and … well, I've put in my twenty and I'm getting out … if they'll let me out. You don't say anything about that either. But I'm trying to tell you that you are going to have to take advantage of the 'right here, right now' because there might not to be any of it before too much longer. The way things are going there may not even be any of it next month, and that is definitely something you don't go around talking about, you hear?."

"Then why are you telling me?"

"A lot of reasons kid but mostly because you remind me of Missy. Now you take that ration book, you stand in line, you take what you can get and then you get home. You hear me? I know some of the kids around here are trying to put together some type of social gathering after the distribution center closes but I think that is a lousy idea. Too many people are running on too tight a string. There is bound to be trouble. You … go … home."

I told him I hadn't heard anything about a social gathering and I wasn't interested in doing things like that anyway. He told me good and then walked me back out and put me in one of the lines that had already gotten a lot longer than they were when I had first walked in.

Unfortunately Julia Winston was in the next line over from me standing with someone that turned out to be her mother. Her mother said something nasty that I was getting preferential treatment since I was "friends" with the Major.

I had to nip it in the bud before the somebody got in trouble and I'm sorry but the lie is what came quickest to my lips. "I forgot to check my bullets … OK?" I said in a kind of whiney voice like I was embarrassed about getting caught and just wanted people to leave me alone about it.

They ate it hook, line, and sinker because it gave them something else to smirk about. It was easy to ignore them after that, especially when the lines eventually took us into separate … well, they were kind of like bathroom stalls. I think they were supposed to look like old fashioned bank teller windows with walls for privacy up on either side but they still looked more like stalls to me.

I handed in my ration book and the guy just looked at it and then took it over to someone else, who then disappeared with it into the back. The guy who I had originally taken the ration book from me came back and asked real casual like, "Haven't done any shopping this month?"

I told him I hadn't known what to do with the book until someone explained it and hadn't had any money to exchange for sand dollars at the last farmer's market. He made some kind of note on this tally pad he had and when the other guy came back and said whispered something to him he made a couple of checks and then directed me to follow him through this little swinging door and down a ramp to another building.

I'll admit it; I was getting more than a little nervous. It was like that long walk to the Dean's office right before they slap some major in-school suspension on you. I walked into another little cubbyhole office to see some guys loading up a table with stuff in plain brown bags and stacks of some cans that had white labels and black lettering on them.

Some woman comes over to me and hands me a clip board and says, "Sign here."

"Sign here for what?" I ask her.

"Geez kid … I don't have all day, just sign and stop playing dumb."

Missy shows up in time and just says, "Sign it Miss Snow and I'll explain it to you." She gave the woman a dirty look that had her hopping off in another direction a little faster than she might have otherwise.

"I don't have a lot of time Sugar. Rand is out back with his horse and a couple of pack mules. You two are going to have to load this stuff and Daddy's and then get out of here fast. And I mean fast. What we have left is going to be gone in less than an hour and we have hours' worth of people left in line. It's going to get nasty. I'd get some of my people to help but we are already breaking down what we can so that we can jump and get going, hopefully before most people will understand what is going on. The Supply Depot is already on lock down and when we leave here I might not see you for a while." She gave me a hug and then one to Rand who stepped in through a door I hadn't noticed before running back the way she had come.

Rand just said, "Grab something."

By the time we had finished loading, some of the smaller packages stuffed into my backpack, we could hear that the sounds of the crowd were already restless, bordering on nasty. The medic that I remembered from the work day ran up and handed me my rifle and another gun to Rand, laughed at me and said, "Bullets … I'll have to tell the Major how you saved his bacon with that one" before running off again.

Rand looked at me with a question and when I opened my mouth to explain he just motioned me to be quiet while we left the distribution area by a back gate and walked the animals through areas that I hadn't even known existed. I had finally figured out we were paralleling US90 when there was something like a roar of sound behind us.

A voice ahead of us whispered, "Well, that ties it. I gots ta get going Rand if I'm going to get this to your uncle's place and get hunkered down in mine before things spill out too far."

Then a figure came running through the bushes. It was the girl with the little boy. She fell down, dropping everything but the baby. She was scared to death but when she saw the other guy she gasped out, "Clyde!"

"Hush Melinda or you'll have 'em down on us."

Long and the short of it, and it wasn't until later that Rand explained things to me, I was witnessing a little "As the Stomach Turns" soap opera installment. The girl looked like she didn't have too much more left in her. Clyde jumped down, threw girl Melinda's stuff in the back of the wagon and then tossed her and her little boy both into the back of the wagon as well while saying, "I don't want to hear a single word about it Melly, you are coming home with me and to hell with what you, the Harbingers, or anyone else has to say about it."

A salute to Rand and he was gone and Rand was pulling me to keep up with him and the mules. I would have gone down several times if he hadn't had my arm. My legs were really aching and I was having trouble keeping up because the pack was heavy. Rand didn't even slow down until we had both gates locked behind us and were standing in my front yard.

"I'm going to put this stuff on the porch, you drag it inside, don't try and put it away … just get it all inside. Then you start filling up your wood box while I take care of the animals. Where's that cat? You get her inside too if you can." I didn't understand what was going on but I knew it was bad just from the way Rand sounded.

I was still filling the wood box when Rand came in with some bigger wood logs in one arm and Fraidy in the other. "I put your rooster and his water in the barn; he should be OK in there for a while. I'll check on him later if I'm able. Where'd he come from?"

He was asking me where the rooster came from when he was running around acting like he was?! I had my hands on my hips and my mouth open when Rand's stomach gave out a giant growl. I thought, "Oh, for Pete's sake" and gave him one of the biscuits that was still in my vest. He mumbled an embarrassed thank you while I went to get him some fresh water.

He was leaning on the kitchen counter catching his breath when I came back. "Look, I know … I … I invited myself over without even asking first. I guess you probably …

I finally shook my head at his sputtering and just said, "Rand, spit it out already. Just explain what is going on."

"I saw you get pulled into Sawyer's office. You didn't really forget to check your bullets did you?"

He must have been close by to hear me tell Julia that. I told him actually I had but that wasn't why Major Sawyer had wanted to talk to me. I didn't have to explain the real reason because Rand assumed it was because the Major was "explaining" some things to me.

"It's worse around town than even Sawyer and Missy know. Harbinger and his clique are really starting to make noise about having more say in what goes on around here. I can see both sides of the argument, Missy and Sawyer can't, at least not yet. People around here are pretty … well, they are used to doing things the way they've always been done. Problem is the infrastructure is gone. So are a lot of the people that kept things balanced, who never would have let a man like Harbinger get as much power as he's gotten recently. The man's got some good points to his argument but he's going about winning the debate the wrong way."

I asked him what that had to do with me and why everything is flying apart and why were we sitting in the heat and the dark like mice with a cat stalking around.

"Not the best analogy, more like the wolf's at the door. Let me try and explain better. Since the farmer's market where you could see how short food is getting, even food being brought in by the military, people are getting worried. Then some of the people that were already worried started getting angry. Harbinger made a lot of promises that he can't fulfill now. As bad as Harbinger has been there are some that are worse. First he helped out by using the abandoned property ordinances to get food back into the pipeline. Then he went further and started putting together possies to take care of the gangbangers that were escaping that the military didn't have time to deal with. There were a lot of both of those in the beginning and he started making friends. Lately he's been keeping a sort of balance by "encouraging donations" from people that have "too much" so that it can be handed out to people that don't have anything. Most of us went along with it at first because we thought it was the Christian thing to do and because the food really was getting to the needy."

He stopped to cough a little and then drink some more water. "But for the last little bit here, the balance has been shifting. The needy aren't getting their needs met and no one has any spare to just give away for free when they have their own families to be responsible to and for. The … let's call them the less desirable elements of the community … that had backed Harbinger's group only did it because of what he could give them. The less he has to give them … the less he does give them … the less loyalty they are giving him. A lot of those people have been joining ranks with the gangbangers and taking what they want rather than waiting for a hand out. Harbinger still has a lot of friends, but they are the kind of friends that expect things in return."

"So things are bad, that still doesn't explain … "

"I'm getting there, give me a chance. This is a lot more complicated than … look there are a lot of people that think they know THE way things should be run. Right now Harbinger is the loudest and has the most support but that doesn't mean there aren't others out there too. And then you've got the military crowd, agents of the government that people had thought would have everything under control by now. And people are angry that they don't. It's just … "

I broke in and said, "You are talking about anarchy. Too many people thinking they are in charge or should be in charge and their rules are the right rules but in reality no one is really in charge and the rules are changing so fast that no one knows what they are."

Rand quirked up his lips, "You've got to be the oldest sixteen year old I've ever met. Yeah … yeah, that's a good, short definition of what is starting to happen. And it is coming to a head. You heard what happened when the food ran out. Too many scared people that waited too long to take action."

"Why are you here? Why aren't you with your Uncle George helping to defend … "

He stopped me short, "Do you care if people talk?"

When he changes the subject, he really changes the subject. I had to stop and think for a second and ask, "About what?"

"Do you care if people talk … about me staying here?"

"It's not like I know a lot of people who would care one way or the other. There's your family and that's about it. Besides, what's to talk about?"

"Well, Julia has started … " and he blushed.

Oh for pity sake. I told him, "Look. I already know Julia is mad because I yanked her chain hard at the market. Ask me if I care. Her mother isn't much better from what I've heard and witnessed, not that that is a whole lot. What are they saying about me that you think I'm going to be so upset over?"

He chewed his lip and then got serious and said, "About us. Maybe I've made a mistake by staying here but … "

I got it and told him that just because people talked didn't make it so. That as long as his family understood then I didn't care about what other people said. He looked at me a long time and asked, "You sure?"

After I told him that I was for sure and rolled my eyes he was a little easier. He said that in that case he had invited himself over until he was sure that any major blow up was over. "And look, don't get all bent out of shape thinking that I think you are too young to look after yourself. I do but you are proving me wrong … but there is no way you are prepared for what might be coming over the next couple of days. And part of what might be coming is my fault. The Winstons and the Harbingers have been friends for years and I guess they're happy now that Julia is seeing Fred. What they aren't happy about is how they've been portrayed in the community since I tussled with Ron Harbinger and Fred and his cousin Rickie played dirty. That caused them problems they didn't realize it was going to cause them. It gave some people pause that had been giving Harbinger unconditional loyalty. And Julia … well, she's starting to say things like you were the reason that she and I broke up and …"

That's when the water I was swallowing went down the wrong way and it was a few minutes before I could stop coughing and laughing at the same time. Rand didn't get it so I tried to explain it to him. Julia was the "pretty girl," and I was the weird chick from out of town and younger on top of that. No one in their right mind that knew Rand would think that he would throw Julia over for me after dating her for nearly five years.

"That's not funny Kiri."

"Sure it is. All of this is as bad as being back in highschool. Julia is just trying to make herself look like the injured party. I don't want to hurt your feelings Rand but she must be dippy to throw you over for a scuzzball like ol' Freddie."

He turned unexpectedly angry, "Has he been bothering you?"

I told him no but with his warning and with my experience of the guy at the market it didn't take a genius to pick up on the obvious clues. "Any guy who will do what he did in broad daylight right in front of his girl will do who knows what when she isn't around. She's going to be so sorry one of these days and then she'll come running back to you."

"Let her run to somebody else. After some of the things she has said to me and about me the last two weeks I don't want whatever she offers."

He can say that but I don't know that I necessarily believe him. That's a long time to date someone just to turn about and suddenly decide you don't want to be with them ever again.

We left off talking about his private life after that and stuck to the basics like how had I been and how he was feeling and what each we had been doing since we last saw each other. He stepped outside and since the noise was still off towards town followed me around while I watered my veggie barrels and we saw to the animals in the barn again, already having to scoop some poop that Rand threw onto my compost pile. Pretty Boy was pecking at the feed that the mules and Hatchet dropped and while Rand filled a big container of water for them to drink from and made sure there was nothing in the barn they could get into, I went to fix lunch and dinner. After all, the world can be going crazy but people still have to eat.

I boiled a bunch of water and decided that it was now or never to use that big can of Mountain House chili mac. I cooked that up with enough left over for dinner too. To go with lunch I made fried cornbread and dinner was a bunch of pan biscuits that we had preserves on for dessert. I also used the fire pit to get beans cooking for tomorrow.

Rand didn't ask where I got the food from. I found out in a roundabout way he thought it was from the house that originally had all the hunting and camping gear in it. I didn't say yes either way but it still felt a little bit like lying. He helped me to put things away and was fascinated by the "fruit cellar" that Daddy had built. There was nothing in there except stuff that I had already canned and more canning supplies so I didn't see any sense in hiding it from him. Besides he kept looking at the blueberries and then looking at me like he couldn't compute something. It was funny.

We talked about my parents and about his. I found out he was the first person from either side of his family to go to college and that he had been a surprise that his parents hadn't quite known what to do with after they had made up their minds that they weren't having kids. His memories of his parents were good, just different from mine.

"It was Uncle George that taught me hunting, camping, fishing, and that sort of thing. My dad worked so many hours delivering stuff in Orlando that there wasn't any time for it. Aunt Rachel and Mom didn't always get along either. Aunt Rachel was different from Uncle George as night and day. She wasn't real satisfied with where life had taken her. She was more … something, mellow maybe … after my Mom died and then when she got cancer too but it was still always Uncle George that was the more demonstrative of the two. He's the one that made me feel like their home was my home too and not just a rest area until the next thing in my life came along." After that I remembered to ask him about the scene between the girl Melinda and Clyde.

Clyde is Rand's friend with the reloading equipment. His father and Melinda's fathers were real close growing up. Clyde got his degree and went to work for the forestry service. When Clyde's parents retired and moved away to Phoenix, Clyde moved into the garage apartment on Melinda's parents' tree farm. "Everything was going fine until Melinda turned up pregnant and claimed the baby was Ron Harbinger's. Well the stink hit the fan. Melinda was a minor at seventeen and Ron is twenty-seven or twenty-eight now, I forget exactly. Either way, old enough to be arrested for statutory rape back then. But somehow the whole situation got turned back on Melinda. She could be really wild and the Harbingers used that against her and nothing ever came of it. There was a big blow up between Melinda and her parents, she stomped out and her father changed his will leaving everything to Clyde. Clyde, knowing Ron from school, believed Melinda but the damage was done. Melinda's parents saw the little boy only once before they both died of the flu. Melinda had finally been granted child support payments by the court after Ron had been forced to take a test to see if he was the boy's father. But I don't think he ever made a single payment. Clyde has been trying to get her to move back home but Melinda is the most bullheaded … well, maybe the second most bullheaded person … "

I threw a pillow at him and when we were done laughing I told him to tell his friend Clyde to stop trying to get Melinda to move back home because it is the right thing for her to do and tell her to do it for the boy. I told him about how she would let everything go but the baby and wouldn't even put him down to tie her own shoe. Wouldn't take any water for herself but let me fill the boy's sippy cup. "She loves her little boy. That will be the way to get to her."

Rand went to walk the property line which gave me time to run up to the dormer room and get a few things including this journal. I've been writing things out ever since trying to get the day straight in my head but it is getting too dark to write and Rand just stepped onto the porch. Hopefully tomorrow won't be quite as bad as Rand thinks it might.


	25. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

 **June 1** **st** – I don't even know what category to put this day in. Parts have been bad, parts have been weird, but parts have been … I don't know, better than just OK.

I stopped writing last night when Rand stepped onto the porch but that doesn't mean things had stopped happening. As a matter of fact apparently a lot had been happening while I was sitting writing in my journal. I opened the door and Rand barked at me, "Did you even look to see who it was?"

I would have gotten snippy at him except the front of his shirt had blood on it. He locked the door and rolled down the security door before going over to lean against the kitchen counter. He just stood there with his head down. I got him some fresh water and after a moment of looking at it like he didn't know what it was he finally started drinking it.

"I went to school with Dickon Brown ever since I moved to live with Uncle George. He's been one of my best friends. I hadn't seen him lately. His family lives all the way over off of River Rd and … "

I could tell he shuddered but it was too dark for me to see his face. I got the wind up lamp – one of the things that I brought from the dormer room – and turned it on and he jump like he had been stung by a hornet. "Where did you … ? Never mind. How much battery do you have left?"

I showed him it was a little wind up lamp … I'd forgotten to charge the solar one (now put on my daily to-do list) … and he tinkered with it a second before wondering aloud whether it could be seen from outside. I told him no since I had already checked. The roll-downs don't let anything out and neither do the accordion shutters because they extend out from the windows on all sides. On top of that I told him Momma sewed black out curtains to the inside of all the drapes that were hung at every window and that we can pull those closed if he wanted to. He wanted to so I went around the house doing that, mostly by feel, while he took the lamp to the bathroom to change his shirt and wash up.

I was trying to be patient but by the time he got out of the bathroom and I put his shirt to soak I had more acid in my stomach than I could handle and nearly ran into the wall trying to get to my parents' bathroom so I wouldn't embarrass myself and have a mess to clean up.

I hate puking. I really hate puking in front of other people. I had heard him rattle the door knob but was too busy trying to make sure everything made it to the bowl. I was shaking in embarrassment when he popped the lock and came in anyway when I wouldn't answer. He opened the cabinets until he found the wash rags and wet one with the pitcher of water I keep in there and washed my face. I tried to make him leave – with hand signals since I didn't have the breath to talk yet – but he ignored me. When I finally stopped being sick I could have just crawled under a rock but Rand turned out to be pretty cool.

He asked me what was wrong and I explained about how when I get stressed out my stomach sometimes develops a mind of its own. He said, "Yeah, I used to do that during finals week. Didn't matter how much I had studied all semester, I was convinced that something was going to go wrong and I'd lose my scholarship."

He made it easy not to be too embarrassed which isn't something I expected from a guy. I finally pulled myself together but then I started worrying that he would think I wasn't strong enough to handle whatever was going on. Before I could even say something he told me, "And no, I don't think you are being a 'baby.' But you need to tell me if something is bothering you. I can't read minds. If it is … um, girl stuff … and you don't want to tell me, fine but you still have to tell me it's girl stuff and that you don't want to talk about it. Things are too crazy for me to try and guess. Deal?"

I told him "deal" and we shook on it which was a little silly but it made us both smile. Then we went back to the kitchen and he asked me if there was any way to get on the roof so he could see above the trees. I asked him why go on the roof? And then I led him up to the first bonus room whose window overlooked my road, We had to open the window and shutter and it was hot up there (heat rises and it will get warmer up there as summer comes on) but this time of year it is hot anywhere you go; at least the air was fresher than what was down stairs with the windows and the shutters all closed up.

When we settled down, him in a chair by the window and me on the futon and the lamp off but within hand's reach, he finally told me what had happened.

"I walked the fence line, what I could of it anyway – the quadrant where this house sits is totally overgrown and impenetrable by the way – and didn't see anything, but I could hear stuff off to the west. I used your road to try and get closer to see what was going on. As soon as I got out of the trees on that piece between the two bends in the road I heard shouting and motorcycles coming from that piece of land where you dumped … well, over in there," he finished trying not to upset me again.

"It wasn't too much longer before I heard some shots and then the motorcycles speed off. I was debating what to do when someone came stumbling out of the trees closer to the highway. He got hung up on the barbed wire but eventually made it over but fell down and didn't move after that. I knew I couldn't leave whoever it was in the road for anyone to see. When I got up there I realized it was Dickon. He was already dead; his wounds didn't look that bad so I don't know for sure what killed him. I carried him back into the trees. The fight, riot, or whatever you want to call it is spreading out from the center of town now. I think the gangbangers are going to use the confusion to hit as many places as they can and cause as much misery as they can. For all I know other people could be doing it as well."

We really didn't talk much after that. I fell asleep on the futon but was shaken awake sometime during the night by Rand who asked me to keep watch while he got a little sleep. I did and once heard a really large bang that was big enough that even though it was far away I could still almost feel it. Rand woke up on his own and told me to lay back down which I was happy to do. When I woke up the sun was already up and I could smell smoke which scared me the rest of the way awake.

"Easy. It's blowing from town. Some buildings must have been set on fire last night. It's pretty wet and it's starting to rain again so I doubt it will go far."

Rand said he needed to take care of the animals and check things out. He asked me if I could cook in the fireplace and I said yes but it heated the house up really bad so he said just to skip it. I pulled out the trusty can of granola but realized I was getting very close to the bottom; there are several more cans in the dormer room and in the hole in the wall in the second bonus room but I didn't have time to dig them out.

Rand came back in with a scratch on his cheek, "Your rooster makes a good watch dog. I'm lucky his spurs haven't grown in yet."

I handed him a luke warm cup of instant coffee using the left over water from last night that was in the thermos. He grimaced but drank it anyway. He also ate the bowl of granola and milk I gave him but instead of putting the dried strawberries on it he handed me a shirt pocket full of blackberries and told me there were a bunch of ripe ones in the orchard.

When Rand walked out there with me – allowing as how I needed to check on my things – his "bunch" and my "bunch" didn't line up. Most of the berries were still red like a raspberry instead of dark purple or even farther away from being ripe. I did gather the ripe ones but there was barely half a bucket. Maybe if we had walked all over the property I could have come up with a full bucket but Rand wouldn't agree to that. The ones I did pick I had to fight the mosquitoes for. I brought them in the house and gently washed them to get the rest of the mosquitoes off.

Next, while Rand wandered around the yard trying to figure out what the noises were that we were hearing off in the far distance I dug up the beans and brought them inside and stuck the whole Dutch oven in the fireplace, leaving some hot coals on top to keep them warm.

The coals in the ground were hissing like crazy as the light rain hit them so I covered the hole with a piece of scrap of sheet aluminum. I planned on lighting another fire in there later. With this done I was hanging at loose ends and Rand was eager to get back inside and lock everything down.

I could see how dark he was under the eyes and asked him if he couldn't just take another nap until lunch time if I promised to stay upstairs and keep watch. It took some weaseling but I finally got Rand to agree to a nap – and he calls me stubborn – and he was crashed in no time flat. He insisted on sleeping on the futon though.

While he slept I decided to get out Momma's stuff and see if I could rip out the seams on a couple pair of blue jeans that I had found. It wound up taking me longer than I thought it would but it gave me something to do while I kept watch. I also thought out what I could use as a belt for the treadle sewing machine. I found a spool of leather for women's belts in Momma's crafts supplies. It was way too wide but I think I can cut it down to make it work using Daddy's big shop scissors. And in the drawer of the sewing cabinet was a computer printed manual for the sewing machine … Daddy must have found it on the internet when he had promised Momma he would refurbish it someday … and it shows how to rethread the belt. Pretty simple, well maybe, if I can rig up some type of metal staple to hold the two ends of the "belt" together.

I had finished ripping out the jeans and was practicing one of the crocheted edges I remembered on a piece of scrap fabric when I looked over and saw Rand watching me with only one eye. He asked me if I'd seen anything and I told him no and that most all of the noise had stopped too. He got up and I went downstairs and dished out some lunch. I hadn't fixed any bread but Rand didn't seem to mind.

After lunch we checked on the animals again. Fraidy showed herself for a few minutes and deigned to be petted and scratched before slinking off into the bushes. Pretty Boy behaved this time and didn't attack though he wasn't too happy that we didn't let him out. We left him pouting in the pile of branches I had stacked in the barn.

We both needed to walk off some energy but Rand wouldn't go further than where I used to feed the cows. We had just started back when Rand practically tossed me into a big clump of blackberry bushes and then put his hand over my mouth when I started to give him what for over it. A horse and rider was coming up to the fence fast.

Rand had chambered a round in his rifle when the man whispered frantically, "Wait! Joiner … it's Mitch Peters. You and my brother Jace used to race down on 252 before the sheriff set up that course at the old concrete plant. Got some news and a warning from Mr. Henderson."

Rand motioned for me to stay put while he went to meet the man. They were quiet but I still heard them.

"Mr. Henderson sent me around to tell you to find a hole and crawl in for a while. Things have come unglued. Downtown is on fire, some idiots tried to bust the gates down at the Supply Depot, and the gangbangers are running around doing everything they can to make things worse."

Rand whispered, "Have you heard anything about Uncle George's place?"

"They are holding out. And folks know he'll shoot to defend his kids and worry about who he is shooting later. But that's not your problem right now. Freddie Harbinger is dead and his brother Ron has been shot and no one knows if he's gonna make it. Old Jared is all the way crazy and out for blood. Word is if you didn't do it you had a hand in it."

"What?! I didn't … "

"I didn't say you did. Mr. Henderson said anyone who did a fool and his voice is carrying some weight. Not everyone is crazy but some people think you could have. You know how people are. And Mr. Winston isn't helping 'cause his daughter is missing. It's all circumstantial but it don't look good."

I made them both jump when I came out of the bushes saying, "He wouldn't do anything like that. More than that, he couldn't have. He's been here taking care of me since the distribution area closed."

"Doesn't matter. People believe what they want to believe." Then turning to Rand he said, "Just keep your head down. It'll get straightened out after the crazies and gangbangers run out of energy; until then just hang loose. No heroics, no theatrics. And Mr. Henderson said to keep an eye on the girl or he'll know why not. Now I'm done playing messenger boy. We lost a dozen head before we could get the cattle into the secured stockyard. I braved the loonies to get away from Mr. Henderson chewing on our … "

Rand cleared his throat but I didn't have any trouble following Mitch Peter's train of thought. I might not have had many dealings with him but Mr. Henderson didn't strike me as an easy man to be around when he was in a temper.

After the horse and rider couldn't been seen for the trees we headed back towards the house. It had finally stopped drizzling but that only made things more hot and miserable and that pretty much summed up Rand's temper. I handed him the swing blade and pointed at the next area of grass I had intended to cut for the cows. I figured he could chop off some imaginary heads while I went and fixed blackberry dumplings. Momma always cooked a treat for Daddy when he was in a foul mood and the way Rand ate I figured one way or the other he wouldn't say no to dessert.

It was a good thing that I did fix the dumplings because it took dinner and two helpings of dessert before Rand would talk in words of more than one syllable and stop clinching his teeth and fisting up his hands. I mostly just stayed out of his way. I think by way of an apology he helped with the dishes and then carried the Dutch oven when I started a batch of baked beans with bacon-flavored TVP for tomorrow.

"I have shares with Uncle George and when the weather gets cold we'll butcher some hogs and I'll make sure you get some real bacon."

I told him, "That would be nice but don't go to the trouble. I don't have any way to refrigerate it so it would just go to waste."

"You need a smokehouse. I'm surprised your Dad didn't build one."

I explained about how they'd had a bunch of plans but ran out of time to do anything about them. He got thoughtful looking … kinda cute in a goofy way … and he mentioned that if I was really interested in learning that he'd show me how to build a smokehouse out of an old refrigerator. He laughed at my expression and told me they were called "white trash" smoke houses by some people but they worked just as well as the others, they just weren't as pretty. I told him I didn't need pretty but that I'd have to learn to get my own meat before I would need a smokehouse.

We went back and forth on that subject for a few minutes then he said he was going to keep watch. I stayed downstairs, he looked like he needed some space to think and so did I. It's weird having Rand around like this. I like it which only makes it weirder. It's nice having a friend … a real one for a change … but I need to remind myself that is all he is, not that anything really would ever come of it. He's older than I am and with Freddie out of the picture I bet you that Julia is going to turn up and cry on his shoulder about the terrible mistake she made, and how things have been so awful, blah, blah, blah. And nice guys like Rand usually fall for that stuff. I want my friend to be happy but not with some girl like Julia 'cause unless I'm really wrong about her, if he takes her back she'll turn around and do him like that again someday.


	26. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

 **June 2** **nd** – Rand is going nuts being out of the loop and he's beginning to drive me nuts. He's wondered aloud several times who shot the Harbinger brothers and where Julia was. I do too if for no other reason than she would help clear Rand's name, but it is pretty obvious he still has some feelings for her regardless of what he has said. After nearly five years it would be stupid to think otherwise I suppose.

Something needs to give soon though, good or bad. For some reason Rand reminds me a little of my dad. Isn't that crazy? Daddy was the same way, he couldn't sit still except if he was hunting or fishing or working in the air traffic control tower. Momma said that was because his mind was telling him he was still doing something useful … his mind had a focus and was using up the energy that his body normally did.

I told Rand I just couldn't sit around another day with the blackberries getting ripe and wasting on the vines or getting eaten by the deer. I reminded him that I was counting on everything the orchard produced to keep food on my table. He wasn't happy but he understood. Well, he did after I plied him with a not half bad mushroom and cheese omelet. I think it was the cheese that did it. Cheese … unless it is powdered or comes out of a can … isn't to be found much anymore. The Florida weather doesn't really support hard cheese making to begin with. I know how to make queso blanco because Mrs. Jimenez taught me to help her make it for the Fiesta Menu at the diner but that's a soft cheese that has to be used up right away or refrigerated.

After the breakfast dishes were washed and put in the drainer I got all of my canning equipment set out and got water heating on one of the fire pits. Then we went outside and Rand followed me around like a body guard; more than once I nearly tripped over him. I started by picking the blackberries out in the orchard and got two full buckets from out of there. I brought them back to the house and put them gently in a colander and poured a little water over them to clean off any stray bugs. I dug the beans up out of the other fire pit, put them in the fire place and got a fire going and set up on the second pit and I went back and forth pretty much through the whole day canning.

By lunch I already had eight pints of blackberry juice, two pints of blackberry vinegar, four pints of blackberry syrup, and nine pints of plain canned blackberries; that was three canners full. By lunch time I also had a very cranky Rand to deal with. It wasn't that he was being nasty, but he was stalking around like the Dean used to when he didn't have anyone to chew on. I promised him if he walked with me to pick some wild blackberries I'd stay at the house and wouldn't stray so he could go roam around the property. It didn't take too much persuasion. But first came lunch.

To go with the baked beans I made fried rice cakes. Rand tried really hard not to make a funny face while I was making these but after a real gentle bite on the first one I had a hard time not laughing at how fast he put away everything I had dished onto his plate. In fact when we locked the house and headed out to go berry picking he was stuffing his face with the last rice cake.

My Momma would have been in berry picking heaven. She loved to pick blackberries because her daddy used to take her when she was a little girl. I remember going with Momma and Granddaddy when I was a little girl. I don't remember liking it then because I was scared of snakes but now, picking berries seems somehow restful and productive at the same time. Like one of those "zen" things you would always hear about but be clueless what they meant.

In an hour we had all three of the buckets I brought full of berries. We would have had more but I think Rand might be a nervous eater because he ate just about as many as he picked. As promised after Rand walked me back to the house and made sure I kept the rifle and pistol near at hand at all times he went "walking the perimeter." I left him to it. I was kind of relieved to have his nervous energy focused on something besides me.

Rand was back every hour until dinner time and while he was gone I was able to get eight half-pints of pickled brambleberries, one pint of blackberry shrub, 6 pints of blackberry jam, two half-pints of blackberry catsup, and two pints of spiced blackberry jelly. I should have stuck with plain berries and juice today because when I started experimenting I had to make several different batches just to get a canner full so I wouldn't waste fuel.

For dinner I took the leftover baked beans, added beef flavored TVP that I soaked in some beef broth and then added a small can of pineapple tidbits that I found in the stuff that I got on ration day. I mixed it up and reheated it and served it with a box of crackers from the same place. I'm glad I opened and checked them because the crackers were on their last leg. They weren't far off from their expiration date but they must not have been stored very well because you could just tell they weren't far from going rancid. We had that happen at the diner every so often and it is usually because they sat in a hot delivery truck or warehouse too long.

After dinner there wasn't a breath of wind and the mosquitoes got so bad Rand came back in almost as fast as he left. He clumped upstairs to "watch" and I've stayed down here cleaning up and writing in my journal. I feel bad though I don't know why. He's basically babysitting me; I don't need it but I'm sure that is what he thinks he is doing. If he was home he'd have lots of things to do and he wouldn't be so bored.

I guess I better go upstairs and check on him. If he starts growling at me I may just have to back him up some with a little growling of my own.

 **June 3** **rd** – If I ever again want something to happen just to break the tension I hope somebody kicks me.

Rand was cranky last night but not as bad as I figured he was going to be. We took turns on watch again after we smelled smoke and heard some commotion coming from what Rand said wasn't too far on the other side of the waste collection site. Basically that meant that whatever was going on was just on the other side of US90 where CR49 intersects with it. The waste collection site is where you take (or I guess you could say took) your garbage because they don't have curbside pick-up service out in the county.

We both got enough sleep last night but just barely. Breakfast was cheese grits with sausage flavored TVP mixed in. Not a lot of talking was going on. I didn't know what to say and Rand seemed to get more wound up as the minutes passed. I made him some fresh coffee (instant, but that's the only kind I know how to make), put it in a thermos, and he was out the door in a flash. I know he was taking care of the animals while I picked more berries out of the orchard and from right around the hedges that enclose the house because I caught him watching me while he walked the animals around the yard. But as soon as I came back to the house he put the animals back in the barn and took off with a nod in my direction that basically said our arrangement of yesterday was still in place.

I was just wondering what to do about lunch and taking the last load of plain berries out of the canner when Fraidy came zipping around the corner of the house and flew between my legs and into the house, nearly making me drop the pan I was carrying. I didn't have much time to wonder what was going on when I started hearing pops from up the road and horses screaming.

I grabbed my rifle and came around the house to the sound of a wagon moving a whole lot faster than it should have. My road dead ends into a barbed wire fence at the place where I used to feed the cows. I wasn't' sure what to do but the sight that met my eyes as I peeked around the potato vine lattice just about scared me to death.

Mick Crenshaw was pulling on the horses reins … wagon reins … whatever … he was pulling hard and was also leaning on what I guess was a wagon brake. The horses were still pulling but right before the fence Mick was able to draw them to a stop; well I mean they were stilling rearing and not behaving but at least they had stopped running. I ran out and poor Mick was white as a sheet. I asked him what was going on and the kid cried, "They shot Daddy and he fell beside the wagon and the horses took off … I've got to …"

I broke in and asked him where and he said in the wide section of the road where the pine trees grew on one side. I told him to take care of the horses and then took off at a run. I don't know what I was thinking but something said I needed to get up there fast. God must have put wings on my feet because I wasn't even winded when I got up to the gate. I slowed down and climbed over the gate without opening it into the tall grass and then crawled around to a Pindo Palm.

I probably didn't need to creep and hide because every man there was focused on their own little drama but I was anyway and put my rifle up and tried really hard to aim it without actually letting it go off. A man I recognized as Mr. Harbinger … both from seeing him on his horse the first day I met Rand and from people's description of him since … had his back to me and a gun aimed right at Rand. Mr. Henderson was trying to talk him into putting the gun down or at least aim someplace besides at Rand. A younger man … later found out this was Rick Harbinger, a cousin to the two rotten brothers and a rat extraordinaire on his own … aimed what looked like a shotgun at Uncle George who was still sprawled and bleeding on the ground though conscious and groggily moving around trying to get to Rand.

"He shot my boys! And that one there was trying to keep me from getting justice for them!" Jared Harbinger snarled, spit flying from his mouth like a mad dog.

"For the last time Jared, Rand wasn't anywhere near where your boys were shot. He was here and I've got people that can vouch for that," Mr. Henderson responded sounding just this side of losing his temper. "Brett Masterson has already confessed to shooting your sons because he found out they were messing with his youngest daughter."

"You lie! You're trumping those charges up against my boys when they cain't even defend themselves. You're protecting the real murderer. I'll get the truth out of him one way or the other. Shoot … " Both Harbingers had sick grins … Jared Harbinger because he was in the throes of some kind of crazy and his nephew because he was enjoying what was happening too much.

I've been getting pretty good practicing on those cans and I wasn't even as far away as I would normally have stood. I knew Mr. Harbinger had just told his nephew to shoot Uncle George. I knew it in my heart. I also knew I couldn't let that happen. Rand and several other men cried out, "No!" I prayed I was doing the right thing and pulled the trigger. A spreading red spot appeared on Rick Harbinger's right shoulder throwing him back. His shot went wide of its mark, missing Uncle George, but peppering some of the other men that had been with them that hadn't gotten out of the way quick enough.

I didn't waste time. I saw Rand throw himself over his still mostly insensible uncle while Mr. Henderson and the men with him drew guns on the men still standing with the Harbingers. But I came up behind Jared Harbinger and just kept coming even when he turned to try and face me. If he hadn't been crazy and not real with it I wouldn't have been able to pull it off. If I hadn't been so far on the other side of scared I wouldn't have had the adrenaline and will power to pull it off. What's that old saying? God looks after fools and children? Something like that anyway. I'm sure Uncle George and Mr. Henderson are still debating which of those categories I fall into.

Mr. Harbinger was all but tripping over his own feet as I forced him to back up until he couldn't go any further because he came up against a fence post. He's a short man but he is still several inches taller than I am. Those inches where his downfall because I had stepped up into his space so that there wasn't any room between us. There also wasn't any room between the barrel of my rifle and the underside of his chin. I said as loud and as convincingly as I could thinking of all the cowboy movies I had ever watched with my dad, "Mr. Harbinger, you make me shoot you and I won't even cry at your funeral. I don't know what your problem is but Rand Joiner has been at my place since we took off from the riot. He's been keeping me safe from the likes of people like your sons. Put down your dat burn gun and stop all this craziness!"

I think a skunk could have walked through and no one would have noticed. After a few seconds of struggle where I just leaned on him harder and jammed the barrel up tighter he finally let Mitch Peters take his gun. By that time though I had gotten crazy angry myself. It was losing my parents all over again because someone didn't care about what their actions meant to other people. I was crying but didn't realize it at that moment.

It was Mr. Henderson who came over and gently pried the gun out of my badly shaking hands and then dragged Mr. Harbinger over to some of his men. Someone made me sit down and put my head between my knees. I looked up and it was Pastor Ken. He told me to sit there for a minute and went to Uncle George and started checking him over. I found out later that Pastor Ken had had a day job as an EMT for the volunteer fire department.

Mick came running up the road crying even worse than me, trying to get to his dad. Rand grabbed him and held him and after a couple of minutes Pastor Ken let Uncle George sit up. "It's just a graze; the fall out of the wagon is what knocked him out."

I'd been avoiding looking at Rick Harbinger; sure I had committed murder. But when I could finally bring myself to I saw he was gritting his teeth and cussing while someone held him down with direct pressure on his wound. After Pastor Ken examined him I heard him say, "In and out. You still need to get him over to the clinic to make sure it's cleaned out and bandaged properly."

I noticed another wagon coming around the corner and when they stopped men started loading both Harbinger men and a couple of the other injured that had caught some of the shot gun pellets … or whatever you call that stuff inside shotgun shells. One man in particular looked like he had an armful of bloody bug bites.

The blood on the man's arm is what finally did me in. I crawled off into the bushes trying to puke quietly so no one would notice. It didn't work. A wet bandana was laid on the back of my neck and Rand said, "I thought Pastor Ken told you not to move." All I could do was heave and shake my head and try and push him away so I could die of embarrassment in private.

Eventually I allowed myself to be helped out of the bushes. I could tell the men were trying to not embarrass me and it choked me up but it also gave me a chance to stiffen my spine.

Mr. Henderson was shaking Uncle George's hand, "George, glad things turned out better than expected."

"You and me both old friend, you and me both. God was watching out for us."

"Hmmm. May hap he was this time." And then with a sigh, "I've got to get back to my place, things still ain't as calm as I'd like."

"I understand. Go on, we'll be fine." And with that Mr. Henderson and his men left.

Rand looked pretty torn but I knew what he needed to do. "Get your uncle home. I'll be fine."

They all fussed, even Mick, but I couldn't and wouldn't leave my home to the mercies of whatever was going on. They kept at me the whole way back to the house. They kept at me even after Rand had gotten Hatchet and the mules out of the barn. He finally had to give up and made me promise to not go far from the house until Mr. Henderson or he came by to tell me things had calmed down. He promised to be back as soon as he could to check on me and I told him they'd need him at home if his uncle was going to be down for any length of time.

They finally left when it was obvious Uncle George needed to be taken home and put to bed sooner rather than later.

After they left I didn't have the heart to do any more canning. The water had nearly boiled away in the canner and I was lucky not to have the pot crack. In fact, all I did was bring stuff in, make sure to cover the fire pits after I put the fires out with some damp sand, shut the house up and make my way up to the dormer room where I've been ever since.

It's getting dark and the pops and bangs have started up again. Sounds like they are coming from all over. I hope that Rand got his uncle and Mick home safe and sound. And I hope whoever is fighting will just stop it. Enough people have died over the last year. It would be nice if those of us that are left could pull together and find some way back to whatever is supposed to approach normal these days instead of acting like a bunch of mean kids in an out of control kickball war.


	27. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

 **June 4** **th** – Supposed to be a rest day according to my schedule but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. I know I should, if for no other reason than it's the Sabbath and that is what Momma and Daddy would have expected, but I still can't. I've got some leftover feelings about what I did yesterday. They are kind of rattling around in my head. I don't want to talk about them and don't want to write about them. I'll just have to deal … but it's awful hard finding things out about yourself that you don't know if you like or not.

Sat down and had a good talk with myself. There are a lot of things I don't know and there are a lot of things I figure I don't know that I don't know … but I do know that I'm not living with Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie anymore. I always complained – sometimes out loud and sometimes just grumbled inside me – that things were different than what my parents would have wanted. There were things that were important to them that they wanted to be important to me too (like the Sabbath thing). Now I wonder if what I'm doing is what my parents would have wanted or would my parents even like the person I've been or the one I'm turning out to be. That bothers me more than just about anything else that has gone on for the last few years.

I'm here, living off of what Momma and Daddy were building for themselves, their "retirement home." Don't I have some kind of obligation or something to do things the way they would have? I can't see Momma ever being in a situation where she would kill a man. Daddy I can see doing it defending us; he was in the military too so he was prepared to do that kind of stuff if he had to. I just can't see Momma being able to do it. But Daddy's not here to do it for me in case it needs doing. I don't have someone around to protect me. Rand and Uncle George and Mr. Henderson don't really count 'cause they aren't around all the time and when they aren't around I have to figure things out for myself. Besides, I can't expect someone else to take care of me forever. I have to be able to do it myself. Isn't that one of those responsibilities you get when you grow up?

So I guess that means I have to be prepared to be more like Daddy than like Momma. It's just I had hoped that when I grew up I could find some way to be more like Momma on the inside than I've been. My plan had been to come live here and things would just fall into place and I could learn to be nice and sweet like her. I guess I missed out on that chance if it was ever anything more than a fantasy to begin with. Maybe if I had been more like Momma on the inside before I wouldn't have constantly been tangling with Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie or with the people at school or the counselors (although I think even if I had been sweet I still would have argued with those crazy people). I could get along with people when I had to but sometimes I just didn't want to. I was angry mostly, for a lot of different reasons, but I'm beginning to think that wasn't always a good enough reason for how I acted. Now I don't have that excuse anymore.

The problem is there are other reasons to get angry and upset and hurt and it is so confusing trying to figure out what person I am supposed to be. I want to make my parents proud of me only they aren't here to see any of this. They're gone. But I'm not, I'm here. Now I have to find out how to make me proud of me and I think that is going to be harder than it would have to just do it for Momma and Daddy who I know would have loved me no matter what.

The pops and bangs haven't really let up. Only calling them pops and bangs isn't really what they are. They aren't just sounds, they are people trying to hurt each other. Sometimes you can tell they are far away, sometimes it sounds like they are closer. Sometimes the pops and bangs are close together and sometimes they are so far apart I think they – whoever "they" are - declared a cease fire, only to they start up again after a little while. It makes me angry that they won't stop. Hasn't there been enough of that kind of stuff already? Haven't we got enough problems without people going out of their way to cause more? I wish there were still cops around so they could go arrest those people and throw them in jail. I wonder why the military people like Major Sawyer aren't arresting those people. Aren't they kind of like cops?

Fraidy wouldn't leave the lanai except to chase a couple of lizards that she brought back to eat. That was gross but since I didn't have cat food I just ignored it as much as possible. Later in the afternoon I stumbled across one of her hairballs and I heaved as I swept it out into the yard; there were little pieces of … things … in it. Ew!

I promised Rand that I would stay around the house and I have. Mostly. I went up the road just a little way to gather more berries after I had picked all of the ripe ones in the orchard and in the hedges around the home site but I didn't go far and I came straight back. I canned berries all day long, mostly whole and juice but I made some honey blackberry jam to compare with the jam made with sugar and even tried out a couple of pints of blackberry chutney. It was kind of bizarre adding onions to blackberries but it is supposed to be good on meat if I ever get some. I threw the remains of the berries that I "juiced" into the compost pile.

I guess I should be scared but I'm not. A little something or other – I don't know exactly what to call it – from thinking about the stuff I've been thinking about but not out and out scared like I suppose some people would be. I've got things to be worried about, like the crazy Harbingers coming back or some other of those people that were with them deciding me and my stuff are ripe for the picking, but all of that seems kind of far away. That part of it is almost like being in a movie about my life rather than it being for real. Mostly right now I'm wondering if I'm changing in ways that are good or not or if maybe this stuff I'm feeling has been part of me all along and I'm just now finding it out.

 **June 5** **th** – Wood gathering was the chore of the day and I certainly need it after all the canning I have done. It was also kind of nice to be so busy that I didn't have to think about stuff too hard. The little wood just doesn't cut it for prolonged cooking or boiling. It's not bad for frying or for heating a small amount of water, like what I put in my thermos to make rice with later in the day, but to get the boil I need for canning I need bigger chunks of wood that make good coals and lots of heat.

I was trying to see if I wrote down how I've been saving my matches. I think I must have forgotten to. I don't have many matches left and having to restart the fire yesterday didn't help. At the end of the day I don't really put my coals out, I just cover the holes with the sheet metal. In the morning, even though the coals are going to be well burnt down I can usually get a fire going from them if I use something for tender and use a lot of patience. A couple of times it hasn't worked out but the majority of the time it does. I can't believe I had Rand right here and didn't ask him if he knew how to work the fire starter I found in my father's gear.

The first bit of wood I picked up was all the tree trash within the home site, there was more than you would think. Some of those oaks drop small limbs like birds molt feathers. But I need bigger wood. There was a dead cedar tree that I thought I could tackle not too far from the backside of the barn. It didn't have any green left on it and was so dry that I could just crinkle the outer limb and remaining needles with my hands. I tried pushing it over but the thing was twice as tall as I was and still had a decent root ball I guess. That left me two main choices. I could go after the easier wood at the fallen tree thereby breaking my promise to Rand to stay near the house, or I could try and cut the cedar down. I opted to try the cedar first.

OK, I'll admit that I know nothing about chopping a tree down. From watching a TV show I know vaguely that if I chop it down wrong that it can fall on me but I figured the cedar wasn't that heavy, just tall. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Long and the short of it, next time I try and bring down a tree by myself I'll stop and just get someone else to do it. Trees on the ground are fair game; trees still standing I'm going to steer clear of.

I chopped and chopped and when the stupid thing did start to fall I must have done something wrong because it twisted and I had to jump out of the way. It still grazed my shoulder and snagged my hair pulling out what feels like a good hank of it. A few scratches on my ear and cheek complete the clueless dork look. On the other hand in compensation by a little after lunch time I had a neat stack of sawn logs that helped keep my fire going so I could can more blackberries. It could have been worse but I guess "live and learn" is something I did today or maybe that should be "learn and live."

For dinner tonight I had rice patties. They are similar to the rice cakes I fixed for Rand but more flavorful. You start with one and a half cups of cooked rice and then add the equivalent to two eggs mixed with two tablespoons of water. To that mess you add two teaspoons of instant onion soup mix and one-quarter cup shredded sharp cheese. The instant soup was out of a box of stuff that I salvaged from one of the houses and the cheese was another one of those Swiss Family gift pack items. Once you have all of that gunk mixed together you form it into patties and then fry the patties in a skillet. You are supposed to use oil to get crispy edges but I just used the not stick spray. I made enough patties for dinner and should have enough for a nibble for breakfast. I may scramble a little powdered eggs to go with the patties but maybe not; it is awful hot in the mornings now.

I guess I'm a little lonely. Not too bad but I didn't even have the pops and bangs for company today, but I shouldn't complain about that. I thought for sure that would mean that Rand would come by to check on me but … oh who am I fooling, this is my journal and I can say what I want. I bet Julia has shown up and he's all torn about what he is supposed to do … help his uncle, try and work out his relationship with Julia, or babysit me. Guess this is as good a time as any to make sure I understand that I need to be independent.

Listen to me, sounding like I'm having a pity party. I'm not, just you can get used to stuff and I guess I got used to Rand being an exclusive friend to me. But that's a pretty selfish thing. There are other people in his life who need him for real and not just for company. If he is working out things with Julia then I should wish him … both of them … good things. Of course I don't really know that is what is keeping Rand from coming over. It could be something totally different. I'll admit that I hope … oh, I'm going to bed because I'm getting silly.

 **June 6** **th** – You know, the nerve of some people. I had the distinct displeasure of meeting Mr. Winston Sr. today. I was picking berries when Mitch Peters led some men down my road. I was up at the hay field, a little further than I know Rand meant for me to wander, when men on horseback came through … and I am going to figure out some way to lock those gates if I have to build the locks from scratch. I had my rifle with me and seeing as how I guess most of the men had heard the story of me shooting Rick Harbinger and then going up against the elder Mr. Harbinger they didn't exactly crowd me.

Mitch's horse was prancing a bit and he had just said, "Hello Kiri, have you … " when a man about Uncle George's age cut him off and said, "Girl, you better not be holding my daughter someplace around here."

OK, apparently there is something in the water in Live Oak because I swear I just can't figure out why people are always looking at me like I caused something. Mitch introduced me and the short explanation is that Julia is still missing and somehow since they had searched "every blade of grass in the county" that meant that I had to be hiding her since I was jealous of her, blah, blah, blah.

I'll admit my head isn't always screwed down tight and when I'm being verbally attacked for no reason my mouth usually goes into overdrive. I said, "Well, she isn't around here and I haven't seen her since she and her mother were being nasty to me the morning of the distribution area riot. Where'd you lose her at?"

Mitch rolled his eyes and looked like he wanted to swat me. I have that effect on people for some reason. The story as I got it is that Julia and his wife had made it home safe and sound but that Julia was gone the next morning. One of the other men there … turned out to be Julia's brother … let slip that she had a habit of disappearing out her bedroom window when her parents weren't giving her her way. And apparently she had wanted something and her parents refused to cave to it.

"Um, don't take this the wrong way Mr. Winston but if I was Julia and you were my Daddy I'd be worrying about how long it would be before I was able to sit down after I got caught for sneaking off without permission, especially if I did it during something as dangerous as what was going on then and caused him to be worried sick."

Julia's brother snickered at that but a glare from his father silenced him … sort of. As soon as his Daddy turned away he started smiling again. "If I was your Daddy girl I'd … "

"Well you don't have to worry about that do you? My Daddy was a good, upstanding man and didn't go accusing people of things there was no way they could be part of."

Mitch broke in, "Now Kiri, Mr. Winston is just … "

"I know what he is just. He's worried about his daughter and I don't blame him but that doesn't make his worry justification for attacking me. Now look, have you even thought about this from a girl's perspective at all? Hmmm? I didn't think so. Does she have any girlfriends around town that she is particularly close to … maybe one that has helped her out of trouble before? Does she have someone that she could talk into hiding her until things calmed down and she was less likely to catch heck for going out without telling you?"

Mitch Peters was just sitting there rubbing his mouth like he was trying to hide a smile. Mr. Winston was sitting in his saddle grinding his teeth and breathing so hard his nostrils flared. Suddenly Julia's brother goes, "Cindy Travers … I bet you anything … she hid Julia … "

"That's enough!" Mr. Winston roared at his son who must be dumber than a stump because as bad as I can be I still would have shut up if my Daddy hollered at me like that unlike the brainless wonder who said, "Well, geez, I was only trying to … "

"Listen you little (I refuse to write the nasty word he called me), if I don't find my daughter unharmed by nightfall I will be back at first light with as many men as it takes and I will pull your house apart and … "

I'd had enough. "Mr. Winston, you come onto my land and to my house uninvited one more time with violence in mind and I will treat you to the same kind of hospitality that I gave the Harbingers and the gangbangers that have come around."

I'd meant it as a bluff … I think … but as soon as the words left my mouth I knew it could be true, that I could do what I threatened. I'd done it twice already; the more you did it the easier they say it gets. Some of the men weren't sure what to think of me. They'd heard how I had responded to the Harbingers but I don't think any of them had thought anything about the others I may have had to defend myself against and all of them had already had dealings with the gangbangers. Even Mitch was looking at me a little different.

They left after that and I made sure to close the gates and tighten up the thumb lock on each gate chain. I thought when I escaped Tampa I had escaped the person I had been and could be the person I wanted to be. I mean I didn't shoot people in Tampa but I could be mean when pushed. There people had learned to leave me alone and that suited me. Here I thought I'd be able to be … nicer or calmer or something … but I'm learning that isn't going to be as easy as I had thought it was going to be. Figures.

 **June 7** **th** – Mr. Winston didn't show up today so I guess he found Julia. Part of me hopes he blisters her rear bumper but she is nineteen so I don't guess that is really all that likely to happen. She should get in some trouble though for making people all upset like she did.

My big accomplishment of the day was to get the treadle sewing machine fixed. It didn't take me near as long to get it hooked up as I thought it would. The wheels squeaked something awful but I kind of fixed that with some olive oil dripped onto where the metal was rubbing the wrong way. The moving parts inside the sewing machine were also dirty so I cleaned them a little bit too.

I only canned two full loads of blackberries today; that's 18 pints. I have way more than I probably need at this point and I have got to save my jars for the other stuff that is coming in. I give a couple of the plum trees another week and I can start picking from them. One or two may be ready to eat before then but I'm not sure. They sure aren't as big as the ones that I used to see at the grocery store but I guess those big, fancy ones were grown someplace special or on special farms.

While I waited for each load of jars to finish I worked on the treadle belt. I finally figured out what to use as a staple to hold the two ends of the belt together. I took a metal coat hanger and cut a piece out of it. I used an awl … it is like a really sharp screwdriver … and poked a hole in one end of the "belt." I made a hook from the clothes hanger wire, put it through the hole, and then pinched it flat with a pair of pliers; nearly pinched my finger too. Then I wound the belt around the wheels of the treadle and sewing machine like the print off showed and got the two ends to meet. Actually I had to cut off a couple of inches because I had mis-measured the length I needed. Then using the awl I made a hole in the other end of the belt, threaded the wire through that hole and mashed in flat too. It works.

I had the belt jump off the wheel once but I fixed that by taking another quarter inch off the belt and snugging the wire down a little better. After I did that it ran really smooth. The sewing machine was real easy to use too. The bobbins look a little different from what I'm used to but nothing that I couldn't handle. I snagged up the thread twice before I figured out how to adjust the tension. And a broke one needle which is probably the biggest tragedy, I only have a few packages of those in Momma's sewing chest.

I celebrated fixing the treadle by making a blue jean skirt. That's how I broke the needle, by hitting a seam and straight pin too fast. It was actually just bent at first but when I tried to straighten it broke. If (when) I bend another needle I need to figure out how to unbend it the right way. I know how to fix a dull needle but not a bent one.

The skirt was super easy and a good first project for me to get more confidence. I wasn't having to start from scratch and most of the work was already done once I had ripped out the inner thigh seems. I pinned and sewed together the two legs to close up the front of the skirt. That left the back all open but I put a fabric panel in there I cut from a cotton lace table cloth that I found while salvaging. The skirt comes down to the top of my feet and hides the scars on my legs. It is pretty cool but I don't know where I'll ever wear it. Maybe I'll just wear it for myself around the house sometimes.

Speaking of my legs, I never had shown them much except when forced to … I even wore tights when I had to wear a skirt for something … but I'm getting a little grossed out at how hairy my legs are getting. Tomorrow I'm calling it a day early and giving myself an "End of the World Spa Treatment." I mean a bubble bath, a new razor, the works. It's not primping, who else is going to see and notice that I shaved my legs or not?

 **June 8** **th** – Oh gosh, I feel so good. I soaked and soaked and soaked in a nice, hot bubble bath. Of course I can't step outside for the mosquitoes … I forgot that mosquitoes are attracted to perfumes. But I should be back to my regular smell tomorrow and the bugs should leave me alone.

I did as much grungy work today as possible. I scrubbed the barn floor. I scrubbed some algae that had started growing on the side of the house that got the most shade. I cut out all of the dead lantana and weeds from the flower beds on that side of the house too. I moved a rain barrel out to the orchard to make it easier to water my container garden. I scrubbed the bottom of a couple of pots that were getting blackened from the camp fire style cooking I was doing. I used Spanish moss and some sand just like they taught us in Girl Scouts. Gave me a great scouring action but left me wet and dirty. And I cleaned out Pretty Boy's rooster run. He didn't like me messing around in there and ran out into the yard and he gave Fraidy fits for a while but once I was through he came back inside to inspect my work and then hopped up on his log and crowed which I took as a good sign. Maybe I'll let him out more if he'll go back in his run at night where he'll be safe.

The work was dirty but not really hard and that's about all I did. I could have picked more blackberries … the more you pick the more the vines seem to make … but I just couldn't get excited about it. I did eat a bunch fresh and gave some to Pretty Boy who went nuts for them. I also made another "friend" but I doubt he'll hang out long. I didn't even bother naming him (or her). It was a box turtle or a gopher tortoise or something like that. He ate a bunch too before heading off into the underbrush.

Rand said that with all of the blackberries I have all over my land that I probably have deer (was nearly run down by some the day I met him), wild turkey, quail, and foxes. All of those eat blackberries. He said most omnivores like the berries and will eat them when they can. I guess that means I have to watch out for raccoons too … beastly pests. They used to get into the dumpster behind the diner all the time and get stuck. They could be mean little freaks too when they'd been trapped for a while.

I decided to splurge and use one of my cup o' soups for dinner and for dessert I've been enjoying a thermos of cold blackberry lemonade. I left the window and shutter open as long as I could up in the dormer room to air it out up here but the sun is just about set and I think I'm going to catch a little extra sleep. The work today must have wiped me out worse than I thought.

 **June 9** **th** – Supposed to be a cleaning day today but I didn't get much cleaning done. I've got a cold. And I'm going to bed. Not even the chicken noodle soup I ate for dinner helped.

 **June 11** **th** – Why is it that company shows up right when you don't expect them to? I'm up and moving but not feeling one hundred percent. I didn't have any choice yesterday but to wash out some of my under things so I did that and hung them on the line outside and then laid down in the lounge chair on the lanai. I hadn't meant to go to sleep but I guess I did.

The next thing I know I wake up to see Uncle George leaning over me with his hand on my forehead. It just about scared me to pieces 'cause I couldn't figure out if I was for real awake or dreaming. I blinked my eyes straight and saw Rand poking at the fire pit fussing to his uncle that he should have come back sooner.

As soon as I could convince them I just had a cold, probably from washing my hair and sitting in front of an open window at night, they left off fussing enough that I could catch my breath. I couldn't believe it but it was close to lunch. I knew Rand's stomach would start making noise soon so I got up to try and figure out what to do about it but then he got cranky and told me to stay put and turned into a fuss budget all over again.

Uncle George hemmed and hawed about whether I should go to the clinic … what if it was the flu and that sort of thing … but I told them about having the flu during the second and fourth waves so they didn't need to worry. That surprised them and I told them the first time I'd been sick a week and the second time less but I'd been helping with the other sick kids where we were warehoused so didn't know for sure how long or how bad.

Uncle George hadn't heard about the warehouse, he thought I had just "run away" or something. It made me tired telling the story all over again. Rand plunked a glass of Tang in front of me and the look he gave me dared me not to drink it. I don't know what his problem was, it's not like I got a cold on purpose just to ruin his day.

I know they were talking to each other but I was pretty groggy. Uncle George came over to me and said that Rand was going to stay for a couple of days until I was better. I told them that it was just a cold and that I'd be fine, they didn't need to go to the trouble but that only made Rand crankier.

For some reason Rand getting cranky was funny to Uncle George and he gave me a smile and told me not to worry about it. Rand needed a break from what was going on at home anyway. I tried to get interested by that statement but for some reason I couldn't. I know Uncle George left and then Rand told me to go inside and lay down and I was just too tired to fight about it.

I woke up a few hours later and smelled something so good it actually made me hungry. I felt all weak and wobbly when I got up but after I tidied myself up and took care of the necessities I felt a little better. I followed my nose and Rand was leaning over a big pot stirring something. I coughed and that brought him around fast.

He grinned so I must have looked better than I felt. Well, I finally got a chance to taste squirrel stew. It was my turn to bite into something real easy but it was actually good. I mean really, really good. I told him I didn't know he could cook and he said he could when he had to. Apparently he hadn't even had to leave the home site to get enough squirrels for the stew.

He said something about using some of the canned veggies I had in the kitchen but I wasn't really listening. The stew had filled me up and made me feel good enough that a nap sounded like a great idea again. I slept again but I don't remember going to bed.

I woke up the next morning with my laundry on my mind. I had forgotten to bring it in but when I sat up I noticed it sitting on the dresser. I got dizzy from being so embarrassed. Rand not only saw my under things, he took them off the line and brought them inside. I could have just died. I'm still trying real hard not to think about it because every time I do my ears feel like they are going to catch fire and light the rest of my head up.

The sky was just getting pink when I made my way to the kitchen but Rand was already up and making pancakes. He's really funny to watch when he cooks; he's so serious about it. He told me there was juice on the counter and it was apple juice made from some of that apple-flavored stuff from one of the #10 cans.

I felt better, just kind of hollow. The drink helped but the pancakes helped even more. I tried to convince Rand that I was fine and that he didn't need to babysit me and that's when he said, "I don't mind if you don't and if you want to know the truth it's a lot easier to be here than to be at home right now."

We sat after breakfast and got caught up on what had been going on. He apologized for the problems with Mr. Winston and I told him not to worry about it because it wasn't his fault that Mr. Winston was a donkey's behind. He nearly snorted coffee out of his nose over that one but it was nice to hear him laugh even if I did wind up having to wash mocha java off my pants leg.

The reason I didn't see more fighting over here is because of Mr. Henderson. He and his men patrol this whole area pretty much. He and Momma O and her family are about the only ones left … aside from me … in this general area and even though we are spread out the gangbangers have learned that Mr. Henderson has no mercy and even less tolerance for them. Of the three my place is the closest to US90 which is probably the only reason I've run into the gangbangers that I have.

Where Uncle George's place is though is another matter. And it wasn't the bangers that caused the most problems. All those factions he told me about that wanted to be "in charge"? Well they started fighting. It was like the stories of the Hatfields and McCoys. Any little imagined injury became an excuse to try and get back at one another. The fights started out with fists but a lot of them ended with blood and guns.

And the Supply Depot was attacked several times. Yesterday they finally got word by way of a patrol that Missy was just fine but that Major Sawyer had been hit twice; the first one didn't do much but make him mad, but the second one has him laid up for a while. All non-essential off base excursions have been cancelled so it may be awhile before anyone gets to see them.

"It was after the worst of the fighting was over though that my problems started. Julia was missing and her dad and his friends came over to the farm and search it. Uncle George didn't mind at first because he said we didn't have anything to hide but they started tearing things up so we had to put them off at gun point. Clyde and a couple other of the neighbors on our side of the road came up and helped and they made a bunch of threats. If I had known you were sick … "

I tried to tell him that it was OK but when Rand is bound and determined to feel guilty about something you can't stop him.

"Then Julia was found hiding out at her friend's house and the … uh, ka-ka really hit the fan. It's been a mess. She keeps running away from her dad and coming over to Uncle George's place trying to force me to take her back, saying it was all a mistake; that she didn't know what Fred was really like, stuff like that. At first I believed her but then something … I don't know. I had actually gone over to talk to Mr. Winston when I heard Julia and her mother talking. Julia's pregnant. It can't be mine because we haven't … well, not since last summer when we decided we … there was this Bible Study at church … anyway, it can't be mine which means she's been fooling around with someone since before she broke up with me to go with Fred. And I don't even know who it is and … "

Wow, guys hurt too. I mean Rand was really hurt. Oh he didn't cry or anything like that but I could tell all the same. But he was angry too. Then he said, "On top of that Uncle George has finally agreed to let Laurabeth go ahead and marry Jonathon. That's meant trying to figure out who is going to be sleeping where. The girls all shared the big bedroom while Brendon and I share a room and Mick has always had the little under the stairs room to himself. Jonathon had fixed a place up in the barn loft but now everything is getting turned on its head. Now let's add even more ruckus … Brendon apparently has been hiding that he and Alicia Morrison from down the road have been seeing each other since middle school but didn't say anything because Alicia's family was … well, they were weird if you want to know the truth … and Mr. Morrison and Uncle George had taken a dislike to one another from the get go for some reason neither man ever said. Only now Alicia's family is dead and there is just her and her baby brother who happens to be a friend of Mick's. Brendon is asking Uncle George if they can come live there."

I asked him if he thought Brendon was being honest and he said, "You know, I wanted to wonder that but you just have to see Brendon. It's like the person he really is comes out when Alicia is around. He's the young man Uncle George always wanted him to be and not the goof ball we all thought he is … was … you just have to see him. It's … it's bizarre!"

"You said 'when Alicia is around' like the decision has already been made."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess it has. Having her move in has actually helped. They combined the two households and Alicia's parents still had a lot of food. It's weird organic this and all-natural that but it's food. And Alicia can cook. Brendon told me her father was pretty brutal and a whack job, practiced his own made up religion and that her mother was no help, just sat around all day like a shadow agreeing with everything her father said regardless of how out there is was. She and her little brother look so relieved that the dude's gone that … never mind, that kind of stuff is best left unsaid. The man's dead and he's getting his reward one way or the other."

Poor Rand. I guess coming to my place really was a vacation compared to what was going on at his. We fixed lunch together … fried cornbread and mashed potatoes with a little bit of canned beef and gravy poured over the top of that and then he asked me if I felt like walking a little bit.

I did but he only meant around to the front of the house. There was a pile under a tarp on the front porch.

"I saw this drawing in one of your dad's books and it gave me some ideas. I had time on my hands hiding out in the barn to avoid Julia. All I need to do is find some screens and we can see if it works."

He'd built a solar dehydrator … the one with the plexiglass front. I couldn't believe it. He finished setting it up not too far from the house on the sunny side. "You'll still need to protect the plexiglass out of season or during storms but I put a lock on the doors … see this latch? … so animals shouldn't be able to get in to get to whatever you are drying."

I still have a hard time believing he'd go to all of that trouble but he said that if it worked maybe I could dry extra fruit that he could take home to his family. You know I agreed. In fact tomorrow I'm going to try a batch of blackberries. It was too late in the day after he got the screens from the salvage houses and stapled them to the frames he had already built.

I asked him where he had gotten the plexiglass and he said that it was left over from a project his Uncle George had done a couple of years ago and that I wasn't to worry because his uncle knew all about it and thought it was a good idea and that if it worked he wanted Rand to build one for them too.

It was getting late in the afternoon and I was winding down again. I asked Rand if he minded if I made dinner a little early and he offered to make it but I told him no since he was working on the fruit dryer. Besides I wanted to try making something that I'd seen in one of Momma's cookbooks.

First I started some rice soaking and while that was going I set up the box oven and got it heating to 350 degrees. After the rice was cooked I added two eggs (made from powdered), some minced onion (from dry), and some butter (a little powdered butter mixed with a little olive oil). You pretend that mess is your pizza "dough" and pat it out into a twelve-inch circle on a flat pan. You have to bake it for about twelve minutes to set it and then you take it out and top it with pizza sauce, pepperoni, and cheese and then cook that just like you would a regular pizza.

You should have seen Rand's face, it was hysterical! We both wound up laughing and I felt a lot better. He asked if he could look at some more of Daddy's books and I showed him where they were on the shelves in the bonus room. Maybe I should show him Daddy's other files in the dormer room … but, I don't know if I'm ready to share that secret yet. While he's been doing that I've been writing in my journal.

He's been making a ton of notes so I guess he is finding some good stuff. I'm glad someone else besides me gets to appreciate the work my parents did. But now I'm getting so tired I just about can't stand it. I'm going to bed but Rand said he's going to stay up for a little longer using the lamp if I don't mind. I'd stay up too but I really am tired.


	28. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

 **June 12** **th** – I'm still snuffy but am feeling much better than I did. But for some reason Rand acted like I had lost my marbles when I asked him to show me how to chop down a tree the right way. Boy did he cut up a fuss when he found out about the cedar tree. He squawked even louder when I told him I chose the cedar tree because I was trying to stick to the promise I made him about staying close to the house. Sometimes he is really hard to reason with. I don't know what the fuss is about, nobody ever complained when I did guy stuff before. Not a single person at the diner said anything when I helped empty the delivery trucks or moved cases of frozen chicken, or fifty pound bags of flour and sugar or other stuff like that. In fact, Aunt Wilma was always on about women's rights and discrimination and that sort of thing.

I'm beginning to think that maybe Rand is just kind of old-fashioned about some stuff. In other words he can be perfectly sane one second and a flaming chauvinist the next. And I told him so to his face. After his jaw stopped swinging in the breeze he started laughing. I haven't a clue what he was laughing about, I was totally serious. He said we'd make a trade, if I fed him for a couple of days then he'd cut me some wood. I wasn't going to pass that kind of deal up but somehow it still feels like Rand got something over on me and I'm not quite sure how.

I'd already fixed omelets for breakfast, this time with chorizo and cheese. I also fixed pan biscuits and he ate them with sorghum that I had added a little bit of powdered butter to. It wasn't quite the same as mixing real butter with good old Briar Rabbit but it wasn't a bad substitute either as far as taste went. While Rand finished the last biscuit I put a jar of sun tea out on the porch.

Right after breakfast he took off to the fallen tree and I decided to play with the solar dehydrator. I had admired it yesterday but I finally got a chance to really look at it all put together today. The frame of it is made wit lumber. The side walls and the back wall is made of plywood. It has a chimney on it that is painted black that looks like an old piece of metal duct work from out of a house. The Plexiglas is in three pieces; the first piece is angled for the roof, the second piece is the front of the dehydrator and the last piece Rand explained is part of the air inflow chamber at the bottom of the dehydrator and runs at the same angle as the "roof" piece of Plexiglas. At the tallest the dehydrator is a little over seven feet tall if you didn't include the chimney that is another two feet above that. At the shortest place (the front) the dehydrator is just a tad over five feet tall. It holds five big racks; that's what Rand needed the screen for. He said he could have used small gauge rabbit wire but stuff would have fallen through the holes as it dried. The whole contraption he had stained a really dark mahogany color, nothing light colored was allowed, Rand said it would reflect the heat rather than absorb it if it wasn't dark. There were even a couple of parts, like the chimney, that he spray painted a flat black color.

The way he explained it worked is that dry outside air is drawn into the dehydrator at the bottom through the air intake. The sun beams down on the Plexiglas and heats the air as it circulates inside the dehydrator. Hot air rises so it will escape from the dehydrator through the chimney taking some of the moisture from the drying food with it. As the day heats the air flow in and out of the dehydrator will speed up, taking more and more of the moisture with it.

I filled two trays up with blackberries first thing this morning and by the time things cooled off … well, relatively cooled off … I could tell the berries had shrunk quite a bit, but they weren't all the way dry. I'm going to try letting them dry another day and see if that is enough.

After I played with the dehydrator for a while it was time for me to work on my end of the bargain. It is getting to be so hot during the day that I don't like to do any kind of cooking where I have to stand over the top of things. Just messing around putting the blackberries on the screens I had sweated what felt like a gallon of water. I was glad that Rand had taken a big jug of water with him. I knew that the opened jar of mayo wasn't going to last in this weather even if I did keep it in the coldest water from the well. I decided to make a big batch of mayonnaise biscuits for lunch and dinner with maybe a couple left over to in case Rand got the munchies.

Mayo Biscuits are really, really simple but it meant heating up the box oven again. I was lucky that there were still coals left from breakfast so I used them to warm the box oven up to 375 degrees. I also warmed up water by sitting an old heavy metal dishpan practically down in the coals by putting the rack as low as it would go. While that was happening I mixed three cups of self-rising flour, three heaping tablespoons of the mayo, and a cup and a half of milk I made up from the powdered stuff. I mixed that all together and then dropped clumps of it into muffin tins and then put them to bake once the oven had preheated. In fifteen minutes they were done.

On the heat remaining in the other fire pit I threw a few scraps of wood and then made rice and lentils for lunch using some beef bouillon as the seasoning as the two were cooking up. I also threw a few raisins in there. It wasn't fancy, but it was too hot to get fancy. I did remember to bring in the sun tea and set it in a pan of fresh cold water from the well. It wasn't the same as having ice but at least it wasn't tepid either.

It was getting a little past lunch and Rand still hadn't come back to the house; I realized I had stopped hearing the thwack of the ax some time ago. I was getting worried so I grabbed some water and took off to where he said he would be. I met him coming back pushing the wheelbarrow. He must have come back for it earlier and I not noticed. As soon as he saw the water he put the barrow down and grabbed it and dumped some over his head and then shook like a dog when he felt how cold it was.

"Boy, it sure is hot." Uh huh, he is the master of understatement. I offered to push but he said another time. We got up to the house and we walked around to the lanai. He laid out flat on the lounger and I brought him some more water. I know he must have got too hot because he didn't feel like eating. After a bit he ate a biscuit but not with his usual gusto. I wasn't sure what to do so I got a palmetto frond and trimmed it off so that it was like a fan. When I started fanning him he looked up surprised from the doze he had been in.

"You don't have to do that."

I told him I didn't mind and kept doing it. He looked at me funny, like … like … like he was trying to figure something out. I wasn't sure what it was but it must have been something important from the look on his face. I was too scared to ask 'cause I'm not sure I want to know. I just want him to know that his friendship means a lot to me but that I don't always expect him to work so hard for it.

Rand got up and said he wanted to go bring in the wood he'd taken off the fallen tree and bring it up to the barn where he could chop wood in the shade. He still didn't look like he felt good but he didn't look like I could argue him out of it either.

I just ate a biscuit and saved the rice and lentils for dinner. It saved me from having to cook again and that didn't exactly break my heart. I'd just hung the sheets Rand had been using out on the line to air out and freshen a bit when I heard some horses on the road. I knew it was riders and not a wagon because there wasn't any rattling; instead there was the clink-squeak from leather saddles and metal bits and pieces and the sound of horses blowing air out of the their noses.

I grabbed the rifle without thinking and went to look through the bushes when I heard Rand yell "haloooo" getting the riders' attention. It was Mr. Henderson, Mitch Peters, a younger man that looked a whole lot like Mitch who turned out to be Chase Peters, and a girl that had to be his granddaughter that he had spoken of before.

I heard Rand say, "Things must be better if you let Cassie out riding."

The girl answered in a laughing voice, "I told Poppy that if I didn't get out of the compound for a little while I was going to kick over my traces and make a run for it."

Mr. Henderson snorted at that but when he looked at the girl I'd never seen him so soft around the eyes. Cassie must be able to twist "Poppy" around her finger pretty good. Rand called me out and smiled with what I think was approval when he saw the rifle. Introductions were made and I invited them up on the front porch for something to drink.

I grabbed the sun tea with only a little regret at spoiling the surprise for Rand and ran it outside with enough clean glasses for everyone. I found them talking about the dehydrator and whether I had tested it or not. I was just about to say that I was in the middle of the first try when everyone took their first sips. Cassie automatically assumed that I had a generator and I looked at Rand for help when Mr. Henderson said, "Cassie honey, you're running off at the mouth again. Just be happy to have something cool to drink."

Cassie didn't look upset but I didn't know what to make of it. I looked at Rand and he winked. What the heck does a wink mean? They left after asking if I minded if they stopped and picked some of the blackberries at the gully because apparently Cassie had suddenly developed a craving for blackberry cobbler. I warned them about the snakes that could be found down there and they were off.

Rand just laughed and asked how did I like my first visitors and I told him I like it better when it is just him and Uncle George. That made him laugh some more. Rand obviously has a weird sense of humor.

I started coughing again and Rand told me to go lay down and I told him I wasn't a little kid and didn't need a nap. Somehow though I wound up lying down anyway and must have slept because I woke up and it seemed like some time had passed. Sure enough I had been asleep a little over an hour. But I have to admit I did feel better.

Rand discovered just how cold the well water was when he tried to take a shower before dinner. I heard a "yaa hooo" and then a little two stepping in the shower. When he came out a few minutes later we looked at each other and we both broke down laughing. I don't know what is so funny but I've laughed more in the last two days than I think I've laughed in the last two years.

We ate the lentils and rice and then we both settled down … me with my journal and him going at my father's books again. He just asked me if I know how to play checkers, I guess he saw the old board game sitting in the corner because I hadn't found a place for it yet. I told him it had been a while but we are going to try and play so I'm done writing for tonight.

 **June 13** **th** – Rand had to go home today. It happened so fast. Brendon came galloping up mid-morning and told Rand that Uncle George had fallen from a ladder and hurt his foot, possibly broken a small bone - Pastor Ken wasn't certain - and he wrecked his wrist too. Then poof, Rand was gone.

It's a good thing that I discovered the ripe plums out in the orchard or I would have gone into a blue funk. The tree is still full of unripe fruit but that just means that I'll have more time to can stuff instead of trying to get it done all at once and a good thing too, I'm still not one hundred percent up to speed.

There were only enough plums to make two batches of plum preserves leaving me a couple to eat fresh for my lunch. The plums were tart; not the pucker up tart but the sweet kind of tart. I'll probably leave some on the tree longer for fresh eating but the tart ones are good for canning. For each batch of preserves I took five cups of pitted plums, one cup of water, and four cups of sugar. I cooked this down for about fifteen minutes and had to stir it all the time to keep things from sticking and then put it in the jars and processed it. Each batch gave me five half-pints and they all sealed which is nice. After they are finished cooling I'll put them away with the others.

I realized when I went in there that I need a better way to organize things. I have to think about jar size but I also have to think about what is in the jars. I figure it will be better to start the right way than get a closet full and then try and rearrange it. I hope one of these days to have enough vegetables to can but that means I have to get up the nerve to use the pressure canner. But up side to this is if I can use the pressure canner Rand has promised me that he'll go in shares and bring in a deer and maybe some pork or beef depending on how things go with the farm animals.

Rand told me that they've got one cow that is still giving milk but it is barely enough to give everyone some to drink and have for cooking. He said that the cow needed to be freshened. He acted like I should know what that is but I wasn't going to reveal my ignorance by asking him to explain. I feel dumb enough as it is sometimes. I looked it up in a book on cows that either Momma or Daddy had bought and I think, If I'm understanding it, that sometimes cows need to be bred to keep up with their milk production. That would explain some other things that Rand said about why they are working with Mr. Henderson … if anyone would have a boy cow that they could use to freshen up their milk cow then it would be him. Only the book says not to call them boy cows, they're called bulls. I knew that but I'm glad I didn't call them boy cows when Rand was here. I don't need to give him any more reasons to laugh at me.

When I checked the blackberries tonight they were still just a little bit sticky so I'm going to leave them in the dehydrator for a little while longer tomorrow and see if that takes care of it. Momma's book said that the dried berries should feel dry to the touch but still be pliable. I guess that means if I let them get like little rocks I've dried them too long.

I haven't really done too much today but I'm already tired and with no reason to stay up I'm going to bed. Fraidy has been playing cat and mouse with me today and is pouting; I don't think she likes Rand going home. I tried to tell her that it wasn't my fault but there is no reasoning with a cat; they are going to think exactly what they want to think. She finally came in but she is still being standoffish. How does a cat that small stomp around that loud?

 **June 14** **th** – Rand came by for just a few minutes this morning. He couldn't stay long but he wanted to check on me. That was nice. He told me that his uncle also twisted his back and is in a lot of pain so he probably wouldn't be back as often as he'd meant to be. I told him not to worry about and that it was silly to think that I needed babysitting all the time. I told him I knew he had things to do and people he needed to see. I think he was going to say something else but didn't which is good because I'm getting tired of people thinking that I can't do this … making it on my own I mean.

I also told him if he didn't stop trying to do too much he was the one that was going to get sick. That unpuckered his eyebrows and made him smile again for some reason. I swear, with all the boys that came and went from foster care you'd think I'd have some kind of handle on the way guys think. But no; they must all be a little on the crazy side or something because I just flat out don't understand why they do some of the things they do or smile or laugh at some things and not at others.

I sent a jar of the three different preserves home with Rand as a thank you after I saw he had saddle bags on Hatchet this time. I hope the jars made it; I wrapped them in a couple of tea towels to keep them from clinking together. I also gave Rand the two left over biscuits from my breakfast which he all but wolfed down.

He got serious again and told me to stay around the house as much as possible. He said he knew he couldn't ask me not to leave the house but to be careful if I went too far from it and to hide from anyone that looked like they were wearing uniforms … police, sheriff, military, anything. He said they'd heard stories of people using stolen uniforms to get people to drop their defenses and then … well you can imagine what happens. And also, to be careful of beggars that might come around though he thought my place was too out of the way from where most people were. He said he'd heard that people were starting to get hungry and that the fighting destroyed a lot of people's food reserves if they had had any to begin with. The only sort of good thing was that the fighting also used up a lot of ammo but that was why people were starting to get sneaky, like with the uniforms.

He kept adding to the list of things to be careful of and I finally told him I wasn't a nincompoop and did have some commonsense. The way I said it was supposed to make him laugh and when it didn't I thought he thought I really was useless but then he said, "I know you're not. But you are out here alone and I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place and … "

His voice just kind of trailed off so I don't' know what else he was going to say. He just kept looking at me and it made me feel funny so I told him to give me his canteen so I could fill it up. I did that and brought it back to him and he said he had promised to be back as soon as he could but he didn't look like he wanted to leave at all. I had to promise him all over again that I would be careful and he finally left but he still looked upset.

As I watched him leave I realized that there is now horse poo on my road. I don't want people to see the horse poo because then they might think that someone lives back here. I took the wheelbarrow and shoveled the stinky stuff … some of it is from Mr. Henderson's group and some from the other people that have been around … and then took it back and dumped it on the compost pile. Nasty. It may look like mud balls that have hay and grass mixed in but it sure doesn't smell like it.

Today I got quite a bucket load of plums. I can tell they are getting a little sweeter which is nice for me. When plums are too tart they make my jaw ache with the first bite. I made two batches of Plum Delicious. This is sort of like a plum puree but it can be made into a filling as well later on. Momma even used to freeze this in little paper cups for brother and I to have frozen fruit pops on hot summer days. Sometimes it is really, really hard not to cry when I remember things like that. My little brother was a brat but he was my bratty little brother and I'll never know what he would have been like as a grown up. He never even got to be a teenager. It was very, very hard not to hate the drunk who stole my family from me. There are still some days that I get really close but he was just a pathetic kid – the same age as I am now - and his actions wrecked his own life as much as it did mine. I can't even remember what he looks like; I never had to testify in court against him. I did have to talk to the prosecutor and the judge but that was it.

And that is all I want to think about that time right now. It makes me hurt and when I hurt I'm not … Dr. Kramer used to say that when I hurt I could lash out and be "less than constructive." That about sums it up I guess.

So back to the constructive stuff I did. The Plum Delicious isn't that hard to make. You start with five pounds of plums and then dip them in boiling water to split the peels and make them easier to get off. Then you squirt the pit out of the peeled plum. You dump the peeled and pitted plums in a big enamel pot on low heat. Low heat is one of the hardest things I have trouble with cooking on an open fire but I just pull the pot to the side as far as it will go and still get evenly heated.

Next you add a quarter cup of honey and a chopped apple to the mix. Now, I didn't have a fresh apple but I do have dried apples and I just dumped about an apples worth in there after I had soaked the slices in some water to plump them up. You simmer this mess for 15 minutes. Then take it off the heat and drain off all the extra juice. I didn't throw the juice away though, no way; it makes a good drink or juice to pour on a yellow cake.

Once you've drained off the juice you put the fruit part back into your pot and you are supposed to add currants to it. Momma said she couldn't always afford the price of currants in the grocery so she would throw raisins in there instead. That's what I did, five tablespoons worth. I also added a splash of lemon juice and lime juice, a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon, one cinnamon stick and another tablespoon of honey. Stir that all up and simmer it another 10 minutes. If you want it a little sweeter you can add about a tablespoon and a half of maple syrup but the honey had done its job and I thought it was sweet enough. After that you just can it like you would preserves.

I canned this in pints instead of half pints since I would want this mostly for pies. Besides, I need those half-pint jelly jars for other things later in the season. And I switched the blackberries out and put on some new ones. It gave me a chance to use Momma's doo-hickey thingamagig called a Pump n' Seal.

The Pump n' Seal looks like a reverse miniature bicycle pump. Instead of putting air into something it takes air out. Over at the fourth salvage house I found these special Ziploc bags that had a little airlock like thing on the bottom that was supposed to allow one of those gimmicky air sucker outers to get the air out. I didn't see the machine but you can never have too many Ziploc bags so I took them.

Well, it turns out the Pump n' Seal works with those Ziploc bags too. I dumped the dried blackberries in the Ziploc bags, sucked the air out with the Pump n' Seal and then put them in the fruit closet in one of those clear plastic shoe boxes. That was even easier than canning though I'm going to keep doing that as long as I can.

But that "as long as I can" thought made me sit down and think tonight about other stuff. I've started a list of things that I need to keep an eye out for because it is the kind of stuff that when it runs out I'm going to have to figure out how to do without it. Like canning jar lids; the rings are reusable but the flat seal is not … not for canning anyway but maybe for something else. Laundry detergent; I've still got a bunch, or it seems that way but what happens when that is gone. White sugar; I've got honey to sort of replace sugar but even that won't last forever. Salt; I don't even know if there is a substitute for salt. Spices, flavorings, and extracts; I know Momma sometimes made her own flavorings and extracts but I don't know how (I'll be looking through her notes) but spices are from faraway places like Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Spain, Turkey … not a single one I know of comes from Live Oak, FL.

I thought about all of this while I crocheted a lace edge on a pair of pillow cases for Laurabeth and Jonathon. I don't know when they are getting married so if I have time I'll cross stitch their initials and some flowers on there too. I could do the edging without paying too much attention to it because it was one of the really simple ones and it left me time to think some harder thoughts than just June weddings and roses. It made me wonder what my future holds.

Now I know there was a time when people didn't have all the stuff I have right now and they survived but I'm not too sure I want to go back to living like ancient people did. It's bad enough I have to haul water to the bathroom for the toilet to flush, take a shower by dumping a bucket of water over my head, or cook all my meals over an open pit instead of in a microwave like civilized people did. OK, the microwave bit may have been taking this too far but I know what I mean. I just don't want to go back to only being a wandering hunter-gatherer. I like my bed. I like a roof over my head. I like walls to keep the boogerman out. And I like the friends I am making here. But if I don't get some things figured out I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to stay here and not get sick because the only thing I have to eat is whatever fruit happens to be in season.

 **June 15** **th** \- Hah! Didn't need Rand to figure out the firestarter thingy after all. I just needed to figure out the speed to scrape it at. The sparks are really hot, one of them hit my hand and I have this little red dot that still stings a little bit.

It rained overnight. I'm not sure if it ruined the berries drying in the dehydrator or not. I wiped off the inside of the Plexiglas because it was pretty fogged up but I think it should be OK. It may just take longer for the fruit to dry. But the fire coals were next to useless; I had forgotten to cover the holes with the sheet metal before I went to bed last night.

I finally figured out how to make the firestarter spark but couldn't make it light up the little twigs so I tried to think of something fluffy. That's when I saw the purple head of a thistle flower, and right beside it one that had gone all puffy like a dandelion. I gave it a shot and I have to admit surprised myself when it worked. The fluff lit up, lit up the little twigs I put on the burning fluff, so on and so forth. Of course I'm sneezing like a son of a gun now because of the stupid thistle stuffing. It's worse to me than getting pepper up my nose because it takes its own time about going away. I nearly put the fire out the first couple of times I sneezed.

It was too close to lunch to bother fixing breakfast so I just left some big wood to settle down into coals and boiled some Mexican rice-a-roni out of a box that I had dumped some beef flavored TVP into. It made enough for lunch and dinner. While that was cooking I went out and picked more plums. And got stung about six times by wasps for my efforts. I finally got smart and put on gardening gloves and that solved that particular problem.

I may have gotten a later start than I wanted but I got quite a bit of canning accomplished anyway. Let's see, two batches of Plum Jelly (I tried a recipe that didn't require pectin so I hope it sets), a batch of plum butter (gosh that was a lot of cooking for a little bit), whole plums in white grape juice (used cans grape juice that I found at the last salvage house but there isn't much more where that came from), a small batch of Chinese plum sauce (only three jelly jars worth), and a batch of whole plums canned in plum juice.

I noticed when I was dumping all of the leftover plum stuff into the compost pile that the pile was starting to smell a little … ripe, kind of fermented or something … so I dumped some dry leaves over the top of it and then some grass on top of that. I'm not sure if it was the fruit or the horse and mule poo causing the smell but I don't suppose it really matters. Stink is stink.

 **June 16** **th** – Bake a cake and someone will show up to eat it. I was in the middle of carrying a dustpan of dirt outside when I heard a wagon on the road. I grabbed the rifle and checked out through my hidey hole and it wasn't a wagon it was a buggy … a Pastor Ken type buggy with a Pastor Ken riding in it.

I came around and said hello. He said he couldn't stay long, but he didn't refuse when I offered him a piece of yellow cake drenched in plum juice and he made out that he could afford to take a few minutes break. While he ate told me he just wanted to know if I was going to be at the church service they are having this Sunday. I hadn't known they were having a church service and he was surprised. He didn't know what to say and then it came out that he is going to marry Laurabeth and Jonathon instead of having a regular service. It isn't going to be a big fuss apparently but he thought I would like to go since it is not too far up the road. They are having it at the old Sheriff's Boy's Ranch thrift store since the church in town burned down. He told me the parking lot is big enough to accommodate horses and wagons and bikes. He talked a little more and I persuaded him to take some plums with him (he is looking thinner than when I first met him) before he left.

I was kind of numb, and I admit my feelings were a little hurt but then I told myself it was Laurabeth's wedding and she didn't really know me so I couldn't have expected to get invited. I went back to work cleaning, dusting, and sweeping trying not to think about it too much.

I was beating a rug on the clothes line when Mitch and Chase Peters showed up. They too got a piece of cake and were asking me if I was going to be at the wedding. I think I'm going to nickname Chase the Cheshire cat; I don't think he ever stops grinning in the silly, lazy way guys that are used to being admired do. After they left I was able to finish my house work.

I had decided to take a day off of canning but once I finished cleaning I kind of wished that I had more to do to keep my mind occupied. I was up in the bonus room looking for something else to clean or do when I saw a horse coming down the road. I recognized Hatchet but not the rider.

I ran down the stairs grabbed the rifle and had started out to the yard when the guy went, "Whoa! What did I do?!"

It was Rand but I've never seen him so messy and he had been out in the sun enough that his skin had gotten so dark I didn't recognize him from the upstairs window. He had sawdust everywhere and a bandage on his hand. I apologized and told him I hadn't recognized him at first. "Yeah, I'm a mess," is all he said in a tired voice as he sprawled on the front porch.

The kind of tired he was didn't look good on him. I could tell he'd lost weight just over the last couple of days. Before he could say anything he said, "I can't stay long, I meant to come out first thing this morning but Jonathon is in such da … uh, blasted … rush that he started before I'd even finished my cup of coffee and it takes me and Brendon both to help left the walls."

He told me they had started to enclose the backporch to make another bedroom but then Uncle George decided it would be better to enclose the porch, turn it into a new kitchen area that wouldn't heat up the house so much and turn the old country-sized kitchen into two bedrooms. "The problem is that when we started doing that we realized that we'd have to reinforce and even out the floor and completely reframe things and raise the roof a little. It's been a mess and to do it we have to dismantle Jonathon's old house to get the building supplies and that has taken even more time. This heat doesn't help."

I told him to sit and ran to get some water and I grabbed the cake pan and a fork as I was coming back through. I gave him the cake pan and he just kind of stared at it and then started wolfing it down. He mumbled something and then swallowed and asked could he have it all. I told him I wouldn't have given him the pan if that hadn't been the idea. It wasn't anything but a little snack cake and it had already had three pieces cut out of it so there wasn't a whole lot left.

He was mashing up the crumbs with his fork to get every bite he could when he finally slowed down and remembered why he came. He asked if I would like to go to church on Sunday and watch Laurabeth get married. When he said something about me not looking surprised when I said yes, I explained that Pastor Ken and the Peters brothers had been over and I didn't get any further than that before he grouched, "What were they doing over here?"

I told him that I guess they had come to spread the news about the Sunday service but he didn't look any happier. I don't know what his problem is. I'm not exactly excited about having so many people dropping in unannounced either and I told him so. When he asked what about him I thought he was being silly and told him that too and that of course it wasn't the same because he was a friend and I didn't know the others very well. "Pastor Ken is OK but I'm always worried that he is going to start meddling and trying to do things for my own good. Mitch works for Mr. Henderson but that brother of his is silly and I didn't have the foggiest idea what to say to him when he got that weird look on his face."

Then Rand got the weird look on his face too and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. I told him he had Chase's weird look down perfectly. Rand looked surprised for a second then smiled and shook his head. Then asked if I had had any problems and if I still had plenty of wood. That taken care of I could see he was trying to judge where the sun was in the sky and I told him he better go.

He kept asking me if I was sure I was OK by myself and I reminded him that I had come all the way from Tampa by myself, actually having my own roof over my head and something to do was easy in comparison. That only made him roll his eyes and say "don't remind me" but he left after I gave him some plums to snack on while he road home and after he promised to come pick me up after he had made sure the family got to the church Sunday morning.

I was glad I hadn't acted like my feelings were hurt. Maybe I'm better than I used to be. He sure didn't mean for me to get hurt feelings so I guess things worked out just fine. I'm going to stop now and try to get a little more finished on those pillow cases. I hadn't thought I'd need to finish them so soon.


	29. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

 **Jun 17** **th** – I don't have a lot of time to write, not to mention that I'm too tired and kind of freaked out.

I did laundry today like I had planned but I realized while I was doing this that I didn't really know what to wear to Laurabeth's wedding … well, I knew half of what I was wearing, the blue jean skirt. I didn't really have anything to go with it though and I also knew I didn't have time to make anything from scratch so I started looking through Momma's clothes. The only thing that came close to something appropriate that I would wear was a short sleeved cotton button down shirt but it is PINK! Oh my gosh but I didn't have any choice. I tried the shirt on and it fit through the back and sleeves but it flapped in other places. Luckily it was already cut to be a fitted shirt so all I had to do was deepen the darts in the front and back. Yeah …only … it took me three freaking tries to get it right.

While I was doing that I had to finish the laundry and finish the pillow cases. At least the million degree heat let the laundry dry quickly. I have to water my container veggies in the morning and afternoon to keep them from wilting. I also had to clean my boots because there was no way that I was going to wear heals. I tried on a pair of Momma's and aside from the fact they were too big I looked like a dork. Did I mention the shirt is PINK?!

I've never been to a wedding before … well, I was a flower girl once but I was so little I don't remember it so that doesn't count. Of course I've seen that sort of thing on TV and heard about what is supposed to go on but I don't think this is going to be anything like that and I don't want to make a fool of myself.

I wrapped the pillow cases in tissue paper with some yarn to keep it closed. I saw some paper over at salvage house four but I didn't have time to go get it and I couldn't remember seeing anything but Christmas paper anyway although who knows with all the mess that is still in that house. I should have checked to see if there was any scotch tape but I didn't. I have electrical tape, duct tape, aluminum tape, masking tape … no scotch tape. I really think life just conspires against you sometimes. The yarn is just going to have to do.

On top of all that I was just beginning to relax when I remembered Pastor Ken saying something about everybody bringing a dish of food to contribute to a kind of dinner on the grounds thing after the service. It was too late in the day to bake a cake, not to mention it started to rain in the middle of me getting my own dinner, so I think I just have time to get up go pick some plums and wash them and put them in a bowl and get washed up and dressed before Rand gets here. Argh!

 **June 21** **st** – You know, it's a good thing I have such a strong constitution or the things that life keeps throwing at me would have made me want to punch my own ticket a long time ago. And yes, I know that isn't a very nice thing to say but this is my journal so I can say anything I want to.

Sunday morning was really pretty but I was almost too nervous to notice it. I picked a big bucket of plums and decided it was just easier to leave them in the bucket and then transfer them to a bowl when I got to the makeshift church. I thought about bringing some preserves but I didn't have anything to put it on. I got washed up and dressed and then French braided my hair and put a ribbon in the tail. I had borrowed the pearl studs out of Momma's jewelry box but I guess they are my studs now. I was tying my boots when Rand knocked on the door.

I ran to answer it and when he wouldn't move so I could get out, I pushed him back so I could close and lock the door. I rolled the door down – I found a new place to hide the rod when I'm away from the house long enough that I want to lock it all up – and when I turned around he was still just standing there.

"What?! Yeah, I know. It's … it's PINK but I didn't have anything else to wear OK? No laughing allowed." I put the pole in the hiding place, grabbed my bag with one of the pistols in it and put it over my shoulder, then turned around to see he was still just looking at me.

"You're wearing a dress."

"I know. And … Oh no!" I looked passed him and realized he had brought Hatchet and I was wearing a skinny skirt … a long skinny skirt. I had wondered if I was going to be able to get up into the wagon with it on. There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to ride Hatchet, my legs would show.

I went to get back inside to change into pants when Rand grabbed me and said, "No! It's OK. I just … I've never seen you in a dress before."

"Well duh! When would I have worn one? I can't ride Hatchet this way and … "

He laughed and said, "Sure you can, you're just gonna have to hold on."

I never felt so … so something … before in my life. He had to lift me up into the saddle. He put the bucket in my lap. And then he climbed into the saddle. He must have seen how nervous I was and said, "Trust me. I'm not going to let you get hurt." That's the words that came out his mouth anyway but it sounded like he meant something else. "Just hold the bucket on your lap with one hand and hold onto me with the other."

That was really awkward but it was kind of nice too. OK, I admit it, I like Rand in a girl liking boy kind of way but I really didn't want to mess up and lose his friendship. He's twenty. I'm not quite seventeen. He was just dating this gorgeous girl for almost five years that broke his heart by being unfaithful. I've never even had a boyfriend much less anything … well, anything like what he had with Julia and all the, uh, "benefits." He has this fantastic family. I've got nothing and no one left walking this planet. He knows everyone it seems and has a bunch of friends. The only people I know around here haven't exactly seen me at my best and I can name my friends on one hand … good friends on a single finger, him. Fat lot of good my good intentions did me.

Knowing all of that didn't stop me from secretly enjoying the ride. I tried to get him to let me down before we got to the building and people saw but he said, "No!" and tightened his arms so I couldn't wiggle. We were so close I couldn't even tilt my head and look up to see if I had made him mad or anything. We rode all the way up to the building and over to where Uncle George's wagon and team were tied. Brendon was standing there with a girl that, if possible, was even fairer skinned than Janet who was standing on his other side. Mick ran over when Rand took the bucket out of my hands and handed it to him.

Rand climbed down and right when he reached up to help me down I felt myself being pulled off backwards. I panicked and jerked away and practically threw myself at Rand who I was lucky caught me. Rand must have thought I was hurt or something because he looked like he was about to take off to the other side of Hatchet where Chase Peters was standing grinning.

Before he could do something I hollered, "Chase Peters don't you EVER touch me again without my permission!"

He looked surprised and then got that stupid I'm-too-cute-to-get-in-trouble look on his face and said, "I was just trying to be friendly."

"Pulling someone off a horse backwards is not a good way to be friendly. It is however a good what to get yourself klunked in the head!"

Then I realized where I was and I wanted to die of mortification for letting my mouth run away again. I just knew I had embarrassed my friends but when I looked they were all smiling … Brendon was even laughing. Then Chase said, "Oh well" and walked off grinning too.

I looked at Rand and asked, "What was he oh well-ing about?"

All he would say is, "Don't worry about it. Chase just thinks he's a stud."

I told Rand he most certainly was not and I'd tell him to his face if he tried something like that again … and that I needed to get the plums out of the sun which finally had him laughing and over being upset. He's a protective kind of guy for people he thinks are under his care. That's what has made what happened later even worse for me to think about. I guess he figured since he brought me he was responsible for me. I was going to tell him not to worry about it when he introduced me to Alicia and re-introduced me to Janet. I guess Alicia is a year or two older than me but she doesn't look it except around her eyes. Her eyes … they remind me of some of the foster kids that came through Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie's home. There was no need to tell me she'd had it bad. It was written right there for anyone to see if they bothered looking. Her brother who had been hiding just on the other side of the wagon had eyes that looked even more hurt. Sometimes you wish you could dig people up just to kick 'em around like they deserve.

We all walked over to the building and went in the boarded over doors that had been propped wide open. The long windows that ran along the top of the walls let in enough light that the inside of the building didn't look dim at all. Rand took the bucket from Mick and while everyone else went towards the front where a bunch of mismatched chairs had been set up we went towards the back of the room where a couple of tables had been pushed together and there were some dishes and pans all lined up looking nice. And then I handed my grungy and out of place bucket to Mamma O.

"Girl, where did you get these plums?"

"Same place I got the blueberries … ma'am."

"Humph. Grab a bowl off that shelf over there and let's put 'em on the table at the end here. If we put 'em at the beginning there won't be any left by the time most folks get through the line."

After I did that Rand took me to sit with his family and whispered, "I'm standing up as Jonathon's best man. Stay here and save me a seat and I'll be back as soon as I can."

I looked down the row and saw Uncle George looking proud, sad, and in pain at the same time. His foot was wrapped up in what looked like several yards of ace bandage and was propped on a cushion-topped stool. I waved and he gently waved back at me and I saw his wrist was in a brace of some type.

I had leaned back in my chair when a nasty voice came from behind me in a whisper, "Don't even think that this makes you any kind of competition." Julia is demented. Why on earth she thought I was trying to compete with her I have no idea and still don't. I just tuned her out and listened to the old-timey pump organ that some woman was playing at the very front, beside where I saw that Pastor Ken had taken his place.

I basically just followed what everyone else did. I stood when they stood and looked where they looked, sat when they sat and clapped when everyone else was clapping as Pastor Ken pronounced Jonathon and Laurabeth man and wife. Janet whispered that the dress was the one that their mother had worn and I could see that some powerful memories were working on Uncle George.

Jonathon and Rand looked nice too in suits though both of them looked like they couldn't wait to rip their ties off. Everyone was sweating buckets and there were lots of hand fans moving the musky air around. With the ceremony over the newlyweds stood up for everyone to shake their hands and I just stood back while their family went up first. Rand came over real quick but before he could say whatever his mouth was open for Julia stepped up to him real close and put her hands on him and said, "You always look so good."

Rand got a real uncomfortable look on his face and his ears turned bright red. People were starting to look and the only thing I could think of was to laugh and say, "Julia, you're letting your mouth overload your butt again. Rethink your strategy and come back another day for a different try."

Rand and a bunch of the men around started wheezing and coughing all of a sudden. Well, like I said, I'm not always at my best when someone is pushing me. Momma would have handled it different, but I'm beginning to understand I'm not her and what made me the way I am is a lot different from what made Momma the way she was. After Julia had stomped off in a huff I looked at Rand and asked him if it had been OK and he smiled and said, "Any time you want." I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean but it sounded like he wasn't mad so I relaxed.

The food was served in good time and there was enough for everyone but not really any seconds. I noticed some people were looking hungry even after a full plate of food. Then I saw a little girl and boy all hollowed eye sitting in the corner with their empty plates still in their laps. I went over to them and divided up what was left on my plate between them. A woman came rushing over and I stepped back real quick not wanting her to think that I'd been messing with her kids or anything, but she grabbed my arm and mouthed the words "thank you" like I'd done something really good before telling the kids to eat up in an over-happy voice.

I had been enjoying myself up to that point. But after seeing the kids I looked even harder at the people around me. Not a one of them looked completely healthy. Even Momma O, big woman that she is, looked like she'd lost a dress size or four since the Farmer's market. Then I thought about how Rand always seemed hungry and all the people they had to feed at their house.

"Don't."

Rand startled me. I turned around and asked, "Don't what?"

"Don't start worrying. You can't do anything about it. A lot of people had a chance to prepare before things got this bad and didn't. They expected the military to keep delivering. They are playing catch up but I think most of them will make it. The ones who won't … there just isn't any way to take care of your family and take care of everyone else too."

I started to tell him that I didn't have a family to look after when I realized that maybe I did … if they'd let me help, if they want to have anything to do with me again. Before I could go much further with that thought things started happening that have kept me hopping the last few days.

A boy of twelve or so suddenly rushed in the door. He was bleeding from a cut on his head and had obviously been beaten. "Senor Henderson … Senor Henderson … que usted necesita dejar muy rápidamente. Mis hermanos están viniendo y son muy enojados."

Mr. Henderson went running over to the boy but he passed out. "Silvo … Silvo … anyone understand what he said?"

"He said that you need to get out of here in a hurry, his brothers are coming and they are very mad." Everyone looked at me with suspicion. I just looked at them and shrugged. I can't help it if I've been taking Spanish since middle school and aced all the course work. Then Mr. Henderson cocked his head right before the rest of us heard it. Motorcycles.

The men … and not a few women … started grabbing for their weapons. The horses and mules in the parking lot were whinnying in fear as the motorcycles started coming through at high rates of speed. "Take 'em out boys just try not and hit the horses."

A few horses did get injured but mostly because they'd pulled loose and took off or had fallen down and skinned themselves up a bit. But the sight of so many armed people made the gangbangers fall back even quicker than they had arrived but not without a couple of them getting taken down.

"All right people, we need to break up and get home. Try and do it in groups as much as possible. Looks like we might be in for some more trouble. Don't just stand there people. Move it!" Mr. Henderson can be loud even when he isn't shouting and when he says move that's exactly what your feet tell you to do.

I was looking around for my bucket when I heard, "Oh Laurabeth what a horrible thing to ruin your wedding day."

I swear that she-cat just seems to go out of her way to make people miserable. What on earth did Rand ever see in her? I marched over and then poked her in the back moving her out of my way. "Laurabeth, ignore her. You got what was important out of this day and no one can take that from you. You and Jonathon are now forever and ever married and you did it with your Daddy's blessing in front of friends and family. What came afterwards is just that, afterwards … it doesn't erase what has already happened. Why don't you go give your hubby a smooch and embarrass him while I deal with Miss Julia."

I didn't have to deal with Miss Julia because as soon as she saw how hacked I was she scurried. I know I can't do too much to her because she is pregnant but I swear if she doesn't knock it off she's going to be giving birth ball headed.

Finally we got out the doors after the first press of people had left. Rand was looking around frantic. "I can't find Hatchet!"

Uncle George was looking bad. He really had hurt himself in the fall he took and trying to help defend his family had reinjured all the stretched muscles and stuff. Jonathon and Brendon were getting Uncle George into the back of the wagon when they called over, "Rand, we need to go! He's probably half way home by now!"

With a last look around he rushed me over to the wagon and then tossed me in even though I started to fight him, "Don't Kiri … just do what I ask for once without getting all … "

That's when the gangbangers came back, and they were back with a vengeance. We were on the road and heading in the direction that I knew Uncle George's farm lay when they started throwing things … and the things started exploding. I guess they were grenades. They exploded and made holes in the road and that's all I really care about knowing. The horses were going crazy and it took everything Jonathon had to keep them from running away. Then a grenade landed so close that the buggy tipped up on two wheels. Alicia and I were thrown out and Jonathon lost the reins or something like that and the horses bolted.

I shook off being rattled and then stood up and dragged Alicia with me. I took off towards my land and looked back to see Rand trying to holler something. I must have said that I couldn't hear him out loud because Alicia said, "He said to get home he'll come back as soon as he can."

I told her it sounded like a plan and started dragging her through the trees, lifting my long skirt and tucking it in my waist band to keep it from tripping me up. I wasn't real thrilled with showing off my messed up legs but it was either be modest or be quick, I chose quick.

Some of the motorcycles left the road and started trying to following us. The difference between people on foot and someone on a motorcycle is obvious but it isn't all good on the side of the machine. People can climb under and over fences, motorcycles can't. We climbed a fence and I pushed her down behind a big oak tree and then did what I had hoped I wouldn't ever have to do again. I aimed with the pistol and shot once and twice … the first motorcycle was down. My third bullet hit the leg of another rider and he laid down the bike he was on just in time to get in the way of the last rider that had diverted to come after us. I shot them while they were down.

With Alicia screaming what was I doing, I ran over to the bangers and took their weapons and ammo since they didn't need them anymore. I'm a slow learner about some things but when a lesson sticks, it sticks.

I ran back and handed one of the guns to Alicia and started dragging her again trying to put as much distance between us and the mess going on at the road as possible. I finally stopped to get my bearings when Alicia fell down for the umpteenth time. She never complained but I knew that I had to stop before I was literally dragging her through the blackberry canes and saw briers. I looked and then realized one of the houses I saw was the front of the first house I had ever salvaged anything from. I asked her if she could go a little more and she nodded.

I took the gun from her and gave her the bucket. We could still hear motorcycles and explosions but nothing close. I still looked around carefully and a good thing I did. Two of the creeps had gotten ahead of us and were trying to cut us off on foot. They got sloppy when they assumed we were nothing but two scared young women. I was a scared young woman, but I was also a scared young woman with a gun that I wasn't afraid to use. Five shots and two dead bangers. I dumped the ammo from all five bangers into the bucket for Alicia to carry and I put the extra weapons in my bag. It was so full it was dragging a rug burn on my neck as we ran.

That was the last of them. I got us both home and Fraidy was going nuts and so was Pretty Boy. I opened the door, pushed Alicia inside with Fraidy and turned to go put Pretty Boy in the barn when I saw Hatchet, his sides heaving. I knew I needed to do something for him but I'd never taken care of a horse before.

Alicia came up behind me and said, "I'll take care of him if you'll help me get the saddle off; that thing is heavy."

I'm glad someone knew what to do for Hatchet, he looked pretty bad. I guess he considered Sparkleberry Ranch his home away from home and had headed this way in all of the confusion.

Alicia wasn't kidding, the saddle was heavy – something like fifty pounds if I had to guess – and the blanket underneath it stunk like sweaty horse. Alicia took care of Hatchet while I pulled a couple of Daddy's saw horses out and put the saddle over them and hung the blanket on the wall to dry.

It took a while but we managed to get Hatchet calmed down and taken care of. Alicia showed me that Rand kept some extra feed for the horse in his saddle bags but she said it had to be done right after the upset he had had. I left her to it and went out and listened. I still heard motorcycles but I also heard the deeper roar of other kinds of engines too. And the rat a tat tat of what I think are called automatic weapons. Sure didn't sound like my .22 and I was just glad to be out of it and praying that the Rand and his family made it home safe and sound. If I'd only known I'd have been having kittens.

The animals all cared for, Alicia and I went inside and I locked everything down. Alicia was all give out and it wasn't long afterwards that she was asleep in one of the spare rooms. I changed into jeans and a t-shirt and hung the skirt and shirt in the bathroom. They are still salvageable, but they are going to take some work to fix but I'm considering just putting them away someplace. I don't know that I want anything to remind me of the last few days.

I realized I was thirsty and a little hungry so I downed a can of fruit cocktail and decided that whether it heated the house up or not I was going to have to cook some dinner and it had to be something that would last.

I burned a couple of logs in the fireplace to make coals and then set to work making Casserole Bread. First you scald a cup of milk and stir in three tablespoons of sugar, one tablespoon of salt and one and a half tablespoons of shortening. Cool the mixture to lukewarm then pour one cup of warm water into a large bowl and sprinkle with two packages of yeast. Stir until the yeast is dissolved then stir in the cooled milk mixture. Add four and a half cups of flour and stir until it is well blended, about 2 minutes. You have to cover the messy dough and let it rise in a warm place until it more than doubles in bulk — about 40 minutes. After that is finished, stir the batter down and beat for another 30 seconds the pour the batter into a greased 1 1/2-quart casserole.

I'd taken the coals from the fireplace and used it to preheat the box oven to 375 degrees and the dough went in there for someplace between 50 and 60 minutes. The smell of baking bread woke Alicia up and we got to know each other a little bit. When the bread was cool enough to cut I gave her a couple of slices with some blueberry preserves on it but by the time she was finished eating her eyelids were drooping again and it was getting dark outside.

She told me what I needed to do for Hatchet and waited for me to come back inside before she went back to sleep. I think sleep was a way for her to get away from worrying about her little brother, Brendon, and the others. I fell asleep at the bonus room window listening to the fight that was still going on and wondering what to do.

I woke up when a bird ran into the window after a bug that turned out to be a tree frog. I don't know who was more surprised, me or the bird or the frog. I was awake and my heart was beating fast but when I turned around I got startled again because Alicia was sitting there just looking at me.

She said she had been awake for about an hour but hadn't wanted to bother me. I asked her if she had eaten and she looked like … I don't know … like she wouldn't know how to take advantage of something that was simply sitting on the counter like the remaining bread was. I went downstairs and we opened my last jar of peanut butter and had peanut butter and jam sandwiches for breakfast.

We went out to the barn and took care of the animals and while Fraidy followed us, she didn't want to stay outside. That more than the unnatural silence that hung on everything told me that something was wrong. I grabbed the trays out of the dehydrator and was thankful for blessings when I realized the plums I'd had on the trays weren't ruined. Alicia took them in for me while I walked around the yard trying to figure out what had me so twitchy.

Then I heard some horses coming down the road and motioned for Alicia to stay inside. I'd come out with the rifle so all I had to do was get over into the little blind I used to peek out and see who was coming when I saw a man being pushed down the road by a couple of others. Of the six I recognized two. Mitch Peters, beaten and bloody had a piece of duct tape across his mouth and he was being pushed along at gunpoint by five others, one of whom was Rick Harbinger.

They were all being quiet so I knew they were up to know good and poor Mitch looked like he could barely breathe. I guess I'm kind of losing it because all I could think of was "In for a penny, in for a pound." I aimed the rifle and it barked one, twice, three times. Tin cans … tin cans … When my eyes stopped burning I could see one man running down the road limping and Mitch wrestling with the other one. A gun went off, the bad guy jumped, and then Mitch aimed at the last man who dropped and didn't move.

Mitch ripped the duct tape off his mouth and said, "Rand … " He's eyes just about bugged out when he saw it was me. I helped him up to the porch and Alicia ran to get him some water. Then we both heard horses coming lickety split. Mitch couldn't move as fast and I was just about to shoot when he said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa ! That's Hoss and Bradley, we work together."

The two big men slapped Mitch on the back nearly sending him to the ground. "Old son, you in better shape than we expected to find. Chase is up to the big house all tore up but they think he is gonna to make it. You the last one unaccounted for. We caught your trail sign and been following as close as we could. We heard the shots and decided to come ahead on. How in hells bells did you take out all five."

"I didn't. I got two … she got the other three," and he threw his thumb back in my direction. What, these men have never seen a girl with a gun before? I thought this was the country.

Mitch and his buddies offered to take us with them to Mr. Henderson but I said no in case Rand came today. Mitch was trying to pressure me when the one called Hoss goes, "Joiner ain't gonna be coming today. I hate to be the one to tell you but we hear he got hit. Don't know how bad but it didn't sound good."

I think my blood must have turned to ice water. I don't know how I knew but I knew right then I wasn't going to Mr. Henderson no matter how much Mitch Peters pleaded. I was going to going to go to the Crenshaw farm and no one was going to stop me.

The three men finally left, taking the corpses of the fallen men with them, and I turned around and spent the rest of the day making sure that I could do what I planned on doing. Alicia strangely enough agreed whole heartedly with me and did everything she could to help. We baked two more loaves of bread, ate sparingly, and I picked through what I thought would be the best food to take with us when we went. Fruit cocktail, instant rice, and then I bagged up some stuff from my #10 cans into Ziploc bags. All of that fit into Hatchet's saddle bags. I put two bags of flour and some canned veggies in a couple of canvas bags that I roped over the top of Hatchet's saddle; I was turning the pour thing into a pack mule.

We were leaving at night. I knew how to travel at night and avoid being seen. I'd never tried it on a horse so I was going to be walking and leading while Alicia rode since I didn't know how good her night vision was. I outfitted both of us with guns and ammo from the stuff I took off the bangers but I also took my own rifle and ammo.

I knew the mosquitoes were going to be bad so I used the unscented Deep Woods Off that I found while salvaging on us. I didn't want the smell of bug spray giving us away in case we had to pass close to people … but I didn't' want bites, ticks, or chiggers either.

Luckily the bottom half of Alicia is about my size and I gave her a pair of jeans to wear. She already had sensible shoes but I gave her socks and had her tuck the pants down into the top since I had a feeling we were going to be travelling through some tall grass; ticks are nothing to fool with.

Alicia is so fair she almost glows, even in the dark so I asked her to tuck her hair under a dark bandana. The top she was wearing was already dark so at least she stood out as little as possible. We just had to have some faith.

It was just shy of midnight when we left. It had been a mess trying to get Hatchet's saddle back on but we finally managed it. He wasn't exactly thrilled about leaving the barn in the middle of the night either. I scattered the last little bit of the horse feed on the floor for Pretty Boy just in case I didn't get back as quick as I hoped and then shut and locked the barn door and headed out. The last two things I had taken out of the barn I stuck on my belt. The first was the giant screw driver that had been so helpful on the trip from Tampa and the second was a pair of heavy duty wire cutters.

With the horse I couldn't just cut across the field until I got my bearings straight. Everything was quiet except for Hatchet's hooves when they landed on the grassy right of way. The closer we got to US90 the more agitated Alicia got but she didn't tell me to stop. We passed the burned out S&S with its Shell fuel sign lying broken in the middle of the parking area. We crossed 90 and I used the big screwdriver to pry the lock off of a gate. Then I turned us northeast, angling to pass behind the building where the wedding had been held, where I had to use the wire cutters for the first time (but not the last). The closer we got to that point the more destruction there was. Bodies and parts of bodies that had obviously taken the brunt of an explosion of some type. Most of the corpses were clothed like the gangbangers in their stupid "colors" but some of the bodies were wearing military issue fatigues. There were only a couple like that but it was enough for me. I wanted to stop and do something for them but I couldn't afford to and I figured God was sorting it all out even as I was worrying at it.

We kept going until we got near the road that the Crenshaw farm was off of. Alicia, shaky and gray in the moonlight, pointed to where I could see some men in a ditch. You don't sit in a ditch full of leaches and ticks and other creepy crawly things unless you were stuck or you were up to no good. Beyond them I saw some more men; one group facing the house that Alicia whispered belong to Clyde and another group facing the lane that led down to the farmhouse.

I had Alicia stay with Hatchet and then I did whatever was popping into my head. I still don't know where it was all coming from. Maybe watching all those cowboy shows and war movies with my Dad when I was little. It sure as heck wasn't something that I thought about doing and practiced on a regular basis.

At the end of what turned out to be the Winston's drive way was an aluminum fenced post lying on the ground. I picked it up, snuck up behind the two guys in the ditch and brought it down fast, first on the head of one and then on the head of the other with nasty squashy sounds. They sank down into the ditch water and never came back up. I made sure they didn't. In for a penny, in for a pound.

The other men on the other side of the road never even turned around. The next part was the hard part. I had to do it just right or I was toast and the whole plan was going to fall apart and I would really catch heck from Rand. I got on my hands and knees and slowly crawled across the road behind the group of men in front of Clyde's house. He was closer to the road and I hoped if there was anyone home that would mean they were closer to helping me out if I needed it.

My shoe scrapped some gravel and made one of the guys look around but I was practically on top of them and couldn't miss. There were only two and hadn't been expecting to be hit from behind. The guys in the other group heard my shots and that's when I realized I really, really, really didn't know what I was doing. But Clyde did. The guys in the other group forgot and showed themselves and – boom, boom – two big shots came from an upper window of Clyde's house. After that I heard clattering and running as he came down his stairs and hit the porch, then the ground, then came over to me to drag me to better cover.

"There's men over in those ditches," he said.

I told him, "Only technically. Seeing as how they didn't come up for over five minutes you'll probably have to fish them out before they contaminate things."

Clyde looked at me in a way I was getting used to. People back in Tampa used to wonder if I was crazy. I think people here in Live Oak are convinced of it.

Clyde had to check on the ditch himself before he would believe me. What did he think they were going to do? Jump up and do the fandango or something? Then he let out this piercing whistle and men poured out of all the houses around and stripped the bodies of the bangers for anything worth anything.

I finally went back and got Alicia and Hatchet and complimented them both on doing what I'd asked even though I knew they must think I'm crazy. Alicia even smiled but whether it was at what I said or the look on Clyde's face when I said it I don't know. Just then Alicia started running and I saw her jump into Brendon's arms. I figured they were entitled to the mushy stuff so I just led Hatchet back to the house that Rand had described.

I kept my mind blank while I walked back. The fact that only Brendon had come out wasn't a good sign. But then Mick vaulted the porch and ran into me so hard I nearly went down. His thin arms had me in a power hug and then he was pulling me to the house. Charlene came out and she pulled me further into the house.

"Daddy is in a terrible state and Rand is even worse. Laurabeth is with Jonathon who got kicked by one of the horses but nothing is broken, he's just sore and bruised. Alicia is missing and Brendon is going crazy and everything is so … "

I told her to relax, Alicia wasn't missing and the only crazy that Brendon was going was with the mushy stuff with her out in the front yard. And then I heard a load of creative cussing the likes of which I haven't heard since Coach Echeverria's foot got ran over by one of the cheerleaders during driver's ed. But I knew that voice and when he finally stopped and I was able to tell he was demanding to know what happened I told Charlene I'd tell him. Her response was, "Be my guest. He's been awful."

I walked into a bedroom to see him trying to get up, "You can't be serious about running around with no pants on."

He grabbed his sheet real quick and looked at me and said, "How the … ? Oh you did not … I ought to … "

"I'll tell you how later after you've rested. Whatever you think you ought to do forget it, you couldn't catch me right now anyway. And of course I did, I had to bring Alicia and Hatchet home didn't I?

It took him a while to stop doing the gasping fish thing where his mouth just kind of opened and shut but no sound came out. I made him lay back down and in the process saw that he was badly bruised with a deep furrow where he'd moved around so much he'd made the bandage come undone.

I was totally fine until he stopped being a cranky stinker and then I just sort of crumpled up and started crying. I hadn't meant to cry. It ruined the whole image of me being able to do whatever it took and then some. I just couldn't help it. I finally stopped crying and he let me sit up but I got a chair and sat close to his bed. I guess we both fell asleep because I opened my eyes and it was suddenly daylight.

Rand was still sleeping but I could hear quiet movement downstairs. I got up and went to see if the supplies I had brought were inside. It was Laurabeth and Charlene. Laurabeth came over and threw her arms around me. I patted her back because I wasn't sure what all was going on.

"Oh Kiri, Rand was just frantic yesterday. We had gotten home and he and Brendon were all set to go back for you and Alicia but then those awful men showed up and started shooting and the horses went crazy. Brendon was able to jump free but Rand … you saw the bandage … and he fell right under the horse. Jonathon went to pull him out and got kicked. Nothing is broken but he is so sore he can barely move. And Daddy … don't get me started on how awful Daddy has been. And the new kitchen isn't finished but this one is all torn apart and … "

Then it was her turn to dissolve into tears. Brendon was back on watch and the other men were all in a healing sleep so it gave the five of us along with Mick and Alicia's brother Tommy a chance to try and put things to some semblance of order. I couldn't do anything about fixing the bedrooms but the only thing left in the new kitchen area was to move things into the new cabinet locations, move the dining room around and to fill the wood box, none of which was rocket science so we were able to do it just fine.

The wood cookstove had come from Alicia's old house and she knew out to operate it so she got lunch started using some of the stuff I had brought to piece out what was in their pantry. When Laurabeth started to say something I said, "Not a word. Don't tell your Daddy or Rand unless they make a point of asking. They'd only get cranky all over again."

It wasn't long after that that Jonathon woke up and then Charlene carried a cup of coffee to her father while I took one to Rand. I knew he wasn't going to like what I had to tell him so I figured to get him caffeinated up first. But before I could even get halfway up the stairs, who do I run into but Julia's mother. She sounded like Fraidy when she hissed at me and then brushed past me like I was something nasty her husband had brought in on his boots.

Trying not to wonder why Mrs. Winston was in the house I walked into Rand's bedroom and got a shock. Julia was getting undressed and trying to get in bed with Rand. He was still out cold. I knew a set up when I saw one and grabbed her by the hair and whispered in her ear exactly how bad an idea it was to try and pull a stunt like she was thinking about.

I'm not big but the kind of angry I can get can make anyone scary. The clothes went on a whole lot faster than they came off and she left the room even quicker. I realized you could just see a little bump in her otherwise flat stomach that looked out of place.

"Why do I have a feeling you just saved my life again?"

Rand was real groggy and in a lot of pain but he'd seen Julia scuttling out the door. I dug the Aleve out of my bag and gave him two with his cup of coffee. "I didn't make it so it should be drinkable."

He smiled despite everything and said, "Don't avoid the question. What just happened?"

I was in the middle of explaining when Mr. Winston jerked the door open, his wife hovering behind him. He turned to her and said, "I thought you told me you saw Julia come in here."

I got laser eyes from Mrs. Winston as Mr. Winston stomped off. I know most folks think I'm mostly just a kid, and a strange one at that. I'm also beginning to accept the fact that I likely created at least half of my own problems because I didn't know when to keep my mouth shut. But the one thing that I learned from dealing with all the kids that came and went at Aunt Wilma's house is that there are some people you cannot back down from. Trying to just avoid trouble with those types only guarantees it.

I stepped out of the room and grabbed Mrs. Winston's arm and got her attention before she could squawk. "I know Julia is pregnant. So does Rand. And Rand knows the baby isn't his … he says there's no way it could be his and I believe him. So will a lot of other people, especially if I start helping them put two and two together."

I'd scared her but she was no coward, "You're nothing and nobody girl. No one will believe you over Julia."

"You're right about me being nobody, but Rand and his family aren't. People like them. If nothing else people are going to wonder and I won't stand by and let Julia get away with what she is trying. You be sure and pass that along before I'm the one that goes to her daddy and gives him the news he's going to be a grandpa in however many months."

I made an enemy but sometimes that happens. They paid me back before the day was too much older. Rand was trying to get out of bed when I got back and demanded to know what was going on. I stayed with him about an hour then he dozed again. I hadn't had the heart to get him worked up so I didn't say anything about leaving.

When I went downstairs I found that my "exploits" of the last couple of days had preceded me and the Winston's were wringing everything they could out of it. Alicia tried to apologize but I told her, and meant it and still do, not to worry about it, all she had done was tell the truth.

Uncle George and Clyde called me outside. Alicia put her hand on my arm but I don't know if it was to give comfort or get it. I went outside where Uncle George was leaning on a crutch with Clyde looking at the bangers' weapons that I had brought.

I got grilled; boy did I get grilled. The Resource Officer at my highschool couldn't have done as good a job. I was crispy all the way through. They also made me feel like … well more than I already do … that there is something off about me. I don't think they necessarily meant to and that's the only thing that I could grab onto to keep from lashing out. I had to keep reminding myself that they weren't hurting me on purpose.

All day, every time I turned around, I found Julia or her mother giving me the shaft in some way. It was subtle but not much different than what I'd endured in school. I'd walk in a room and it would get quiet like they'd just been talking about me and felt guilty. I'd get sidelong glances. Julia offered me boatloads of false sympathy … as long as there was someone there to witness her performance. The two younger boys would just out and out stair, until someone jabbed them to stop it. But no one seemed to have the nerve to just come right out and say something. I got so fed up I started making it worse. I knew what I was doing but I couldn't seem to stop myself. Always being the outsider sucks, I couldn't have admitted that not too long ago but now … now I can. Unfortunately that doesn't make it hurt any less.

The only relief I got was when I was hiding out in Rand's room or out of the house and working. I helped Mick and Tommy clean up the yard. There was a mess to clean up that's for sure all up and down the county road. A couple of people had lost animals so there were attempts at preserving the meat and you'd be walking along and suddenly get that slaughter house smell straight in the face. The Winston's house was a trashed mess. I was over there and doing fine. Mr. Winston and JR didn't seem to mind so long as I kept my mouth such and worked. But Mrs. Winston came over and ran me off in as humiliating a way as she could manage. In front of the neighbors she made it seem like she needed to keep an eye on me because I might be looking for salvage items … in other words stealing from them while they were down on their luck.

That was the last straw. I was more determined than ever to leave. I tried to tell Rand one more time but he was in so much pain that I chickened out. I went off by myself after asking Alicia for paper and something to write with. I doubt I did a very good job of it but I tried to write a note for Rand explaining why I couldn't stay.

I avoided anyone from the house for what little remained of the day, not because I was really angry any more but because I'd finally gotten my anger half-way under control and didn't want to get riled up all over again and say something to make things worse than they already felt.

I stayed quiet at dinner – a neighborhood stone soup kind of thing – but it wasn't easy. Then Alicia told me that Rand was asking for me again so I went up there and kept him company until he went to sleep again, this time with the help of something Uncle George slipped in his drink. I sat there a while longer until the house got quiet and the moon came out.

It was a lot easier to get out of the house than I expected, everyone was exhausted. I was off the porch and going cross ways through bushes and trees when Clyde stepped out and said, "You sure you want to do this? Rand's gonna be hurt."

"I left him a note."

Clyde's snort made it plain what he thought of that. I admit he made me feel like I needed to defend myself which is probably the only reason I bothered to try and explain. "Look, I get it, but the fact of it is I make people uncomfortable. And no one knows what to make of my friendship with Rand which is bound to cause him problems sooner or later no matter what he says. They are being nice for Rand's sake now that they all think that I'm some kind of weird … I'm not complaining, really I'm not. I know me and this isn't exactly anything new. But knowing me I know I'm real close to saying things to people that would only wind up hurting Rand worse if I stayed. It's better for the peace if I just go home."

Clyde still looked disappointed in me but he let me pass. I wish I could say I didn't care what this stranger thought of me but a part of me does just because he is Rand's good friend and that gave me even more reason to get out of there.

The sun was just beginning to come up when I got home. Fraidy nearly knocked me down twining between my legs. At least someone was happy to see me. I unlocked the door, went in and locked everything behind me. I went up to the dormer room, cracked the window for air but left the shutters closed and fell across the bed and went straight to sleep.

I woke up with my boots still on to hear the noise of more explosions only this time they were on the other side of town. There wasn't anything I could do about it so I got up and tried to be as normal as possible. I've taken care of my animals, canned the last of the plums, fixed trays of fruit for the dehydrator, gardened, cleaned my rifle and pistol, and tried really hard not to think about the fact I have probably lost the best friend I've ever had.


	30. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

 **June 22** **nd** – OK, no more feeling sorry for myself. I did what I did. There were some things I could have done different but I can't go back and change that. Time to grow up and no more pity parties. There is work to be done.

I had to scrub the barn down something fierce. Between Hatchet and Pretty Boy there wasn't much place you could put a boot without stepping in something gross. And not all of it would come up with the shovel so I had to drag buckets and buckets of water in there to get everything clean.

Daddy built the "barn" to be more like a giant shed and workshop. It has a concrete floor like a garage because Daddy didn't want to have to put more gravel in there ever couple of years when the tractor pushed it down. It is really nice, but isn't all that great as a barn because animal pee and poo just sits there. Nasty.

Pretty Boy enjoyed being out in the yard and strutting around. He caught a locust almost as big as he is and mangled it all to pieces while eating it. He hung out where the cantaloupe vines are starting to spread. I'm glad too because the more bugs he eats the less bugs there are to eat my plants. The ones in the containers aren't being bothered but the 'lope vines in the ground look like they are getting gnawed on a little bit.

I think Fraidy and Pretty Boy have come to an understanding of some kind. I was sitting on the porch taking a break and eating the last few blueberries I scrounged off the bushes as well as some blackberries and a couple of plums for lunch. Fraidy was lying at my feet in a sunbeam and then Pretty Boy struts over and jumps up in my lap to see what I'm eating. He likes fruit. Fraidy looks up and jumps in my lap. I thought I was going to have a face off right there but then Fraidy looked at Pretty Boy and sniffs him and sprawls across my lap which forced Pretty Boy up on the arm of the lawn chair. Fraidy purred while I scratched her chin and Pretty Boy liked the blackberries I fed him. I felt pretty special … until Pretty Boy took a dump and Fraidy started using her claws to knead my leg. I like animals … I think … but boy do they know how to give you a reality check and put you in your place. So much for being the top of the food chain.

It also made me wonder if I was going to turn into an eccentric old lady like in some of the books I've read. Lots of animal friends but no human ones.

Watching Pretty Boy scratch around reminded me that I need to figure out how I'm going to grow a garden. There is no way I'm going to live off of black eyed peas, egg plant, cantaloupe and okra for the rest of my life. I still haven't asked Momma O if she has other seeds that she'll trade for. I figure I need to move quickly before other people start getting the same idea. I've got some plums left and I don't think she lives too far away. It's worth the chance. I might also be able to entice her with some of the pie cherries that are going to make. All three little trees are loaded with green ones so I'll have tons more than I need … I think … and surely a bucket of cherries ought to be worth something to her.

 **June 23** **rd** – Met the rest of Momma O's family. I'm not sure I've ever been in lust before but looking at Momma O's garden must feel something like that. It's all green and frilly and I could have just wallowed in it. When I told her so Momma O laughed herself into a coughing fit and told me to come up to the porch and "sit a spell."

I'm leaning more to the liking her side than I was before. She's nicer than she lets on but nosy. Man is she nosy; she just about had my life story out of me before I could get a breath to think to not tell her so much. She was real interested in the solar dehydrator that Rand built and told me to tell him to come explain it to her grandson Paulie. I found out later "Paulie" is six foot three and built like two football players put together … and that Momma O is the only person that calls him Paulie. Everyone else calls him Paul or Jr.

Like I said, Momma O is nosy. I got up to leave with some watermelon seeds she said I could plant next month and some pole beans and squash seeds that she said I could plant in August and with the agreement that if I can provide her family with some fruit … all she has is a fig and a pear tree … that she'd start putting back some more seeds for me. She told me again to tell Rand to come see Paulie about the dehydrator so I told her she would probably see him first. She wanted to know why I thought that and I just shrugged not wanting to get into it. What she said next though leads me to believe that woman must have a crystal ball hidden under the big apron she always wears.

"So, Julia has him convinced that the baby is his."

Before I thought I said, "No!"

She just kind of looked at me and then laughed at my expression. "Child, Julia and that mother of hers aren't as wiley as they think they are. They's some of us that know somethins goin' on. Girl is built like a skinny post and she suddenly starts eating like a field hand and gots a glow, what else are people gonna think? Now you sit back down here and tell me what's what so we can keep that boy from falling into their trap."

So I sat because even if Rand isn't my friend any more I wouldn't wish a fate like that on my worst enemy. I told her all the things that I hadn't told her before and she said, "Well, you're right. There might have been a better way of handling things but then again, I weren't there. Julia weren't always like she is now. She was just the nicest young thing; spoiled but not bad enough you could hold it against her. When Rand left to go to Gainesville instead of staying and going to the community college like Julia wanted him to she got upset; most of us figured she couldn't be doing nothing but acting a little wild and what Rand didn't know about wouldn't hurt him none. When Rand was around she was the sweet thing she'd always been and we figured he'd graduate and move back and everything would be all right again. Looks like Julia went wilder than I gave her credit for and overplayed her hand this time. Getting out from under her thumb wasn't a bad thing for that boy all in all. Rand's done some growing up the last couple of years too which has probably made him less susceptible to little Julia's pouts which likely hasn't suited her too keenly. And as for you losing his friendship … you might be surprised. The boy's got some sense and he'll likely figure things out given enough time. Just let things be child and try and accept whatever His will is. I'm sitting here to tell you that fighting that doesn't do a hill of beans worth of good. He's mysterious and will only reveal His will for things when He is good and ready. Seems like the less patient we are the longer He takes to let us in on things."

She gave me a lot to think about but I still don't see how Rand can forgive me for making things so hard for him at his home. I was thinking so much that I didn't notice the stupid snake until I nearly stepped on it. If there is any creature that I can come close to saying I hate it is snakes. I tolerate them but that's about it. I usually do everything I can to avoid them although the whip snake out in the orchard and I have learned to co-exist. So long as he eats the things out there that will eat my fruit I won't chop his head off with a hoe.

I didn't move and it finally settled down and slithered off to the other side of the road; coral snakes may be small but they scare me to pieces. It wasn't until I unfroze that I saw the dog down in the ditch. Its sides were heaving and it was whining like it was in pain. It puked and I figured the dog had tangled with the snake before I did. I know dogs don't always die from snake bites so I didn't put it down right away. But once the poor thing went into convulsions and went all stiff I decided it was more merciful.

I was shaking so bad it took me a while to aim. I didn't want to miss and cause it more pain. I didn't get a chance though.

"Move girl, I'm a better shot."

Mr. Henderson took care of the dog and then started lecturing me for being out in the open just standing around day dreaming. I told him I wasn't standing around, that I had been avoiding a snake and then waited to see if the dog needed some mercy or not. The men Hoss and Bradley were with him and were trying not to smile because Mr. Henderson threatened to paddle my behind if I didn't get it on home. He told me no more wandering around, people were getting desperate and there was no telling what could happen over the next couple of weeks.

So I came home (and not because he told me to either but because that is where I had been going in the first place), put my seeds in a cool, dark, and dry place like Momma O told me to and then started cleaning house. I got most everything done that was worth doing and then sat down to look at Momma's gardening books.

I was trying to picture doing a garden of any size turning the dirt over by hand like the books explained when I looked outside to see that the sky had darkened up. I went downstairs and the wind nearly jerked the door out of my hand. Fraidy skittered in and stalked over to the hearth rug and gave me a look that said, "About time!" I was looking all over for Pretty Boy because it was time for him to go back in his run for the night but when I finally saw him he wouldn't go, he kept running over to the barn door. Well, I'm dense but not dumb. I opened the barn door and he ran inside and hopped up on the pile of small branches in there and started to preen his feathers back in place. Crazy bird.

I grabbed some kindling for my wood box and right as I stepped up on the porch the first fat drops of rain came down. I've been sitting up here in the dormer room listening to it for over two hours now. I've had to close the window 'cause it was blowing so hard that even with the shutters closed the rain was coming in. Its dark and now it is stuffy and hot so I'm going to bed to see if I can actually get any sleep. It's awful noisy up here on top of everything else.

 **June 24** **th** – The only laundry I was able to do today was my under things and that still made a mess. I had to hang them on the retractable line in the summer kitchen. It's been raining off and on all day, actually since last night.

The house is still all stuffy and hot. I haven't been able to open a window because of the rain blowing in. The few times it has stopped I've done what I could by opening the door to the lanai but that hasn't helped much. Fraidy has stayed on the lanai except for a few times when the rain got really hard then she would come and run up on the door so hard it shook. I still don't understand how a cat that small can do stuff like that; she must be all muscle or something. She certainly knows how to get her way. I was worried that she would starve so I rehydrated some freeze dried chicken for her. She liked it well enough; at least I haven't found any hair balls today.

I went to the barn to check on Pretty Boy and I know it's just a symptom of me being crazy but I swear he's lonesome. I don't know where he came from in the first place or how he escaped getting eat up by the dogs, coyote, foxes, and cats all around before he showed up in the yard. I wonder if there are any more where he came from. Momma O had some chickens but none of them were small like Pretty Boy. The way Mr. Henderson talked about my rooster and calling him a runt I don't think he has any like him either. I think my poor rooster needs a girlfriend but I'm not sure where to get one. Poor thing.

I'm trying not to think about me being lonely. It's my own fault and even though I know Momma O said that maybe … I can't count on maybe. My great grandmother used to say "a hive of bees in May is worth a load of hay" every time anyone would answer a question with "maybe." I still don't know what that means. It makes about as much sense as how I feel right now.

 **June 25** **th** – It is Sunday … Laurabeth and Jonathon have been married one week. Whether I had intended keeping the Sabbath of not, God made sure that I kept it today. It's done nothing but rain all day and now the wind has picked up too. The sky looks too scary to think about. I used to like storms – they made my inside and my outside feel the same – but not today. Today I've felt like crawling the walls. Fraidy didn't help; we keep giving each of static cling shocks. I'm going to bed and I hope it finally stops raining tomorrow.

 **June 26** **th** – This started out being the worst day and ended up … well, I'm not quite sure how to describe it if you want to know the truth.

In the middle of last night the storm suddenly got a lot worse. I thought bombs were falling until I figured out it was thunder and lightning rattling the whole house. Fraidy jumped on my head with claws out and I had to unhook her from the top of my ear.

It was so bad upstairs that I couldn't hear myself think so I ran downstairs and then WHAM! I've never been close to where a big bolt of lightning hit before but apparently when it happens you just know. That was the worst one. About an hour later the thunder and lightning let up but not the rain and I fell asleep on the sofa.

The next morning I woke up at my usual daybreak and was relieved not to hear rain for a change, especially after last night. Then I remembered the bolt of lightning and ran upstairs real quick and turned on the switch for the solar lights. They were dim from not charging the last couple of days but they did come on. I turned them off and was relieved and didn't think much more about it.

I came back downstairs and was rolling up the door to the lanai when I realized I couldn't make it go up more than a few inches. Normally Fraidy would have been out anyway but she tried to poke her head out twice only to draw back in, sit down and look at me. I didn't want to but I got down on the floor and looked out. The only thing I could see were leaves.

My heart started beating a million miles an hour. I unrolled the front door and still in my jammies I ran outside and around back.

In case I've never described the lanai it is actually a great big porch built under the house roof. It's twenty feet wide and runs nearly the entire length of the back of the house, not stopping until the big three-sided window set up where the breakfast nook bumps out from the house. The outside supports for the lanai roof are steel posts wrapped in white aluminum and there are white aluminum kick plates that run around the entire bottom area of the lanai. The screened areas are wide and tall and I remember my dad having to special order the screen because they hadn't thought about measuring for the screens before they actually built it.

What I saw when I came around to the back of the house would have made me lose my breakfast if I had actually eaten anything yet. The roof was OK but some of the soffit and fascia had been torn free. None of the supports were messed up but two of the kick plates and four screens were demolished. There was a tree, or a half of a tree anyway, in the lanai and the topmost branches were what was keeping the roll-down from going up.

I followed the part of the tree that was still outside the lanai and saw that the tree I used to think of as "Fraidy's Tree" was split in half … looked like it had actually exploded from the inside out. The part of the tree still standing had burn marks on it and still smoked a little bit. That scared me near to death and I ran and got buckets and buckets of water until it stopped that.

My jammies are ruined … or they would be if I had anything else that I could wear to bed. I finally went back inside and changed and tried to decide what to do. I had a glass of milk and a handful of granola after I realized the tree had taken out the grill on the lanai and was covering both of my firepits.

Knowing nobody was going to ride to the rescue I started with the easiest thing for me to do. I got the limb lopper and started cutting the branches away from the roll-down. It took me most of the morning just to get most of the small stuff off – the stuff that was as thick as my thumb. I had seven wheelbarrow loads and all I could do was dump it in piles out beside the barn; it looked like a bunch of misshapen beaver houses.

Then I went to work using the saw. I sawed and sawed and sawed. I got most of the branches that were as big as my wrist but I was hot, sweaty and tired of getting scratched by the tree and bitten by the mosquitoes. I filled the wheelbarrow up three times and it still didn't look like I was getting anywhere.

Next I tried the ax. What a joke, all I was doing was making toothpicks and I couldn't seem to hit the same place twice in a row no matter how much I tried. So I tried going at the tree from the other end. I was able to saw off a good sized splinter – heck, the "splinter" was half as tall as I was and nearly as big around on one end. I couldn't lift it up into the wheelbarrow because every time I would have it up there the barrow would turn over before I could get around to the handles; Rand hadn't been that much trouble.

I had no choice but to try moving it by hand. I pushed, pulled, and dragged it and was doing OK … not great, but OK … until I hit a soft patch of bare sand. The sand would build up in the direction I wanted to the log to go and cause such a drag I couldn't go backward or forward. I knew I would have to change tactics when I nearly dropped it on my toe. I thought back to my world history lessons and remembered that men used to move big logs and stones by using crowbars. Daddy had a crowbar, a long one that we found on the property after we bought it. Daddy said it probably belonged to the lumber company that had taken out the trees for the utility easement.

I got the crowbar and tried and tried … I even added a fulcrum … but the sand was too soft and I was too weak. I even tried standing on the crowbar but I couldn't stand on the crowbar and push the log at the same time. The last straw was when my sweaty hands slipped and the crowbar bounced up and caught me a glancing blow under my chin.

I was so mad I screamed, threw the crowbar like a spear and shouted, "I can't do this by myself!"

"Whew! Something you finally need help with. You know a guy likes to know he is needed for something."

I whipped around and Rand stood there with Brendon and Mick. I started seeing spots and my rear bumper met the ground.

"Hey! You OK?!" Rand asked as he limped over.

Mick said, "What did you do Rand? You made her faint!" He looked like he couldn't decide if he was going to cry or get mad.

Brendon saved me some embarrassment by joking, "Naw bro, she's just overcome with the sight of us good-looking men."

That did it, "Kiss my left big toe Meathead."

Brendon acted like I'd shot him in the heart which got Mick smiling. Rand on the other hand still had serious on his face and bent down to where I was still sitting. "You OK?"

"Yeah, I just … after … I mean … why are you here?!"

"We're gonna talk about that after Mick and … Meathead … leave. Look, I've got a favor to ask and no matter what you don't have to say yes. Understand?"

I said yes because I think I would have said yes no matter what he asked right then.

"Can I camp out here for a while? I can't even tell you for how long. Things are just … The house is too full and it's not just the Winstons being there. Sawyer and Missy showed up and got married without Uncle George knowing about it and things are … "

Brendon, his normally oh so helpful self said, "What Rand is trying to say is that Dad is off his rocker and the house is busting at the seams. Things are getting worked out but … Mr. Winston and JR are actually not too bad but Julia and her mother are damn near … "

"Watch your mouth!"

"Well pardon me St. Rand of Joiner. 'Scuse me milady," he added with a stupid bow. "Things are unsettled and Rand is odd man out so we want to know if we can store him here for a while to get him out from under foot."

Brendon really is a handful. I don't care if Rand says that Alicia is taming him. I stepped in before he and Rand really starting going at it. "Of course! As long as you want but … you aren't serious about 'camping' are you? The skeeters will eat you alive."

"I tried telling him that too," Mick piped up.

Brendon snickered and I wasn't sure what the joke was but Rand wanted to know if it was really OK and I told him not to be a dork which made Brendon laugh even harder. I just don't understand Brendon sometimes and I hope that Alicia knows what she is getting into. I think he's three fries shy of a Happy Meal most of the time."

Mick ran to get Hatchet and two mules. Rand said the mules were his. He raised them for an FHA project when he was in highschool. Brendon unloaded feed from the wagon and came running out of the barn with Pretty Boy on his heels shouting, "Call this crazy bird off already!" I was honestly tempted not to when I saw Rand was finally smiling a real smile.

The mules and wagon both were loaded down with stuff and it was set on and around the front porch. Rand looked a little embarrassed as he pointed to all the stuff lying around and said, "It's not just me … one of the things that they're doing is converting the attic to a room for the boys. They needed the space. I understand if you don't … most of this stuff was my parents' …"

I told him he was being a dork again and that there was plenty of room and he could do whatever he wanted to. Brendon snickered and Rand nearly punched him. I'm not sure what that was all about but I guarantee that if Brendon doesn't knock it off Rand is going to knock his head off sometime in the near future.

Then all three went at the tree and got it cut back out of the lanai. I noticed Brendon doing most of the heavy work with Rand giving him a dirty look every once in a while. I kept them supplied with lemonade because I wasn't allowed to "get in the way." It gave me a chance to wash out my jammie bottoms and try and get them dried out and take care of the cuts all over my feet and ankles where I had forgotten to put on shoes for a while.

When they were finished all that was left was the half of tree trunk. Brendon said, "In a few days, after we get the roads cleared and take care of the trees over near our place I'll bring Dad's cross cut and we'll cut this down into more manageable pieces."

Rand just nodded as he sat in a chair, his eyes barely open. Brendon then said, "Kiri, can I have some more to drink?" as he nodded his head towards the front of the house where I had put the pitcher in a cooler.

He hurried me around front and started whispering and I finally got a look at the new-improved version, "He's not going to give me any time to tell you so listen fast. He's still banged up pretty good. Dad wasn't happy about him making the trip so soon but it really will help things to calm down at the house. We found out about Julia. Don't you worry about that part of it any more. Mr. Winston has been a lot cooler than any of us expected but things are still … Look, just don't let him try too much … Man! This is good lemonade. It doesn't taste out of a can."

Figuring Rand must be coming I said, "I made it with those little packets of TruLemon I showed you instead of the other stuff. It tastes more like the real deal … and I used honey instead of white sugar."

Rand was walking our way with a grumpy face on that cleared up when he heard us talking lemonade. Brendon even asked if he could fill up his canteen with it and take some back for Alicia, Janet, and Tommy and I said sure. No wonder Brendon was able to hide how he felt about Alicia for so long, he gave an Oscar-winning performance and it was only about lemonade.

Brendon and Mick left and Rand and I were alone. He did look tired so I started carrying his stuff into the house. "Wait on that. I want to talk."

I thought maybe he needed more rest so I told him I'd work for a while and he could figure out what he wanted to do. "What I want is for you to sit down here. With me. And talk. About why you left the way you did."

So we sat, him in the rocker and me on the edge of the porch, and we talked. I figured I owed him some hollering time but I apologized first. "Rand, I'm sorry. If I had stayed I would have made a mess of things. You've seen my temper. I'm not nice to be around some times."

"You said that in your note. Why couldn't you have told me that in person?"

"Because you were really in pain and … I … Rand I tried, I just chickened out."

"Why?"

"Why did I chicken out? Because I didn't want to get you upset and I knew you would try and talk me out of it and I was afraid that I would stay just because you asked me to … and I'm pretty sure that would have been a mistake."

"You made me mad. You …"

"I'm really sorry Rand … "

"You talked. Now it's my turn."

I was positive I wasn't going to like hearing what he had to say but I shut up. "I was mad. And my feelings were hurt." That made me feel about two inches tall. "But what hurt more than you leaving was the fact that you didn't tell me to my face. To me that was the worst part. I couldn't tell if what you wrote was what you meant or if you were just trying to pacify me."

I didn't know what to say to that but I know I felt like crying. I didn't want him to see my eyes watering so I turned my face away.

"Kiri, next time, have more faith in me. OK? That's all I'm asking."

I couldn't believe it. "Aren't you still mad?" I forgot and looked at him and he must have seen my face. I swear I've never done so much crying before in my life. Every time I turn around I'm crying in front of this guy like I'm some kind of baby.

He came over and sat by me on the porch. "Maybe a little. But mostly because you didn't even tell me how you were being treated, I had to find out from Alicia. She's the only one that even seemed to notice what was going on. You also didn't tell me the whole story about how bad it was for you to get to the house and then the next day. I assumed that … that Mitch shot all those men … you could have told me."

"What was there to tell? It just happened the way it happened."

"We're going to have to agree to disagree about that and when I ask about how things go from now on … I mean all of it Kiri."

"What?! And have you see just how weird I am? Don't you get it? I … "

"Kiri, I don't think you're weird."

"You've got to be the only one left on the planet that doesn't."

He shook his head and said, "OK. This next … Kiri, I've been confused as heck. I thought maybe it's just that … I keep forgetting your age and I shouldn't. I probably don't have any business … at least that's what Mrs. Winston … "

"Whatever she says, don't listen to her. She's a mean woman Rand. Even if you hadn't wanted to be my friend any more I still wouldn't have let her and Julia trap you into anything."

"Thank you. But about this 'friend' thing. Alicia told me some stuff that cleared a few things up for me but before I think I've got the answers I think I do I want to ask you a couple of things and I want a straight answer. OK?"

When he said "friend thing" I got worried but his eyes didn't say that he wasn't mad at me. "OK."

"Alicia said that when you two were getting to know one another you talked about … guys."

OK, this was weirding me out but I promised him straight answers. "Yeah. So?"

"She also said that it came up that you've never … dated. Was … was .. that because of something your aunt and uncle …"

"No. But Aunt Wilma was cool about it and told me I didn't have to if I didn't want to."

"Soooooo … you never dated because you didn't want to?"

"Sort of."

Rand looked like he was getting a little frustrated but I didn't know what to do to help him because I had no idea what he was talking about.

"You sure don't make it easy on a guy. What I'm trying to ask is … look … have you ever had a … a … guy friend?"

"Sure … I had friends; I'm not a complete social outcast. Us weird kids stuck together … mostly anyway."

"I don't mean a friend who was a guy, I mean … dang it Kiri have you ever had a boyfriend?"

When I didn't answer him he said, "Kiri?"

"No. I've never had a boyfriend. I'm nearly seventeen years old and I've never … never … never anything … never had a date, never been to a dance, never even come close. I may be weird but I'm not stupid OK? I don't know what Julia has been saying but … "

"Easy, easy. I've learned my lesson with Julia and her mom. It's nothing bad and how many times do I need to tell you I don't think you're weird. It's just I didn't know … look, sometimes I didn't know if it was just me or whether things were … flying over your head. You didn't seem to get things and then some of the things you would say just confused me."

I thought I had it figured out. "Rand, I promise I'll never embarrass you. I know it's got to be hard on you being my friend and … "

"See, there you go again. It's not hard on me being your friend. You drive me crazy. You confuse the heck out of me. But I'm finding I like that. At first I thought maybe you were like Julia and … Whoa! Where are you going?!"

"I AM NOT LIKE JULIA!" I was so mad. Thinking I was weird was one thing but thinking I was like his old girlfriend was something else all together.

"No kidding. Come on, come sit back down. I'm … I'm too tired and sore to chase you."

He said that the way that Brendon would have so I wasn't for sure whether he meant it or was play acting to get his way but since I knew he really was hurt and sore I sat back down, just not next to him.

"Look Rand, I'm … I'm sorry I yelled at you. Just … I don't do so well with the 20-question game. If there is something you want to know then ask. If I'm able to answer you I will. Just … just … trying to …"

"OK, fair enough but don't blame me if this comes out all callywumpus. I'm worried about losing your friendship too you know. And don't look so surprised, guys think of that kind of thing too. I'm used to … look, there is no way to explain this without bringing Julia into so don't get mad. Julia always handled all this … this emotional stuff. I never had to think about it much. She always told me how I was supposed to show her affection, how she expected to be treated. She let me know what she expected and when and why. With Julia I never had to guess because she made sure to tell me every little detail … and I went along with it like that because frankly my mom and Aunt Rachel were the same way. You're different. Boy are you different."

I was getting more confused by the minute, "I already told you I'm … "

"Don't. Don't say you're weird. Different. Eccentric. I personally like to call it unique … don't say weird."

I was getting embarrassed and didn't know where to look. I just wanted him to get to the point.

"Kiri, I like you. I more than like you but I liked you first and still do enough that I don't want to mess the friendship part up either. And if that is all there is I can learn to live with that … but I need to know where I stand. I like knowing where I stand with people. I don't like being confused about this. It's driving me crazy; making me cranky and hard to get along with … and that isn't a good thing right now. I need to know if you have a problem with me more than liking you or if you feel the same way."

"No."

"No what? No you don't have a problem with it or no you don't feel the same way?"

I couldn't even look at him. "No, I don't mind if you more than like me."

"What about the part about whether you feel the same?"

"I … I … I more than like you too. But … Rand I don't know how … I … this is …"

"Hey. Whoa. I didn't mean to scare you. Relax. I just needed to know. We don't have to do anything about it. We've been doing OK so far, right?"

I was scared and nervous but I knew the answer to that question, "Yes."

"Well, we'll go slow. You're … sometimes I wonder if Mrs. Winston was right. No, don't fly off the handle. Just let me finish. You're sixteen and I'm twenty. You might be the oldest sixteen year old I've ever met but that doesn't change that you're still sixteen. And you've never had a boyfriend before. We don't want to mess that up do we?"

I didn't know how to answer that and Rand didn't seem to need an answer. He scooted over close to me and we just kind of sat shoulder to shoulder the way we have so many times before and after a little while I realized I wasn't scared anymore. The whole "boyfriend" thing was big … huge … but if things aren't going to change too much I think I can handle it. I just hope I don't mess it up. I wonder what his family thinks of this? I can't do this if people are going to give Rand a hard time about it.

I had to help Rand stand up because he had gotten stiff sitting down on the porch edge. We spent the rest of the afternoon bringing his stuff in and putting it in one of the spare bedrooms. We set one of the bedrooms up for him. Rand wanted to make sure that I understood he wasn't asking for … "benefits" … or anything like that. Now that was embarrassing but Rand insisted that I needed to understand that he wasn't out to take advantage of me or anything. To be honest I'm glad. It's like something I never really thought about to have a boyfriend much less it be someone like Rand … I'm not ready to think about any "benefits." Just thinking about that makes me sick to my stomach. But how long will a guy like Rand be satisfied with things being that way?

Things are changing so quickly. I'm changing so quickly in ways I don't know if I like or not. There were people who didn't like me before but I've never had anyone try and kill me on purpose. I certainly never imagined that I'd have kill someone to survive … much less all the … I still have a hard time thinking about some of the things I've had to do. I know it was me or them but I don't know what to do with how that makes me feel. I've got to live with it; I just don't know where to stick it in my head.

Dinner was pretty awful but Rand ate it anyway. I just heated up some canned soup because both firepits are still closed and the grill is mangled beyond all repair and quite frankly I was just too tired to get creative. Two things are at the top of my "to do" list tomorrow; go to the salvage houses and see if there is an old charcoal grill at one of those places and dig two new fire pits. I also have to rake up all the little baby fruits that have fallen in the orchard … Rand said it would be OK, that there actually wasn't as much on the ground as he had expected, probably because the orchard is fairly protected on all four sides. In fact, I've got to take some time just to sit down and make a list of things that I need to do. My head is all in a swirl.

After we ate … I refuse to call that sorry excuse a real dinner … I was cleaning up the dishes when Rand stopped talking in mid-sentence. I peeped around the corner and he'd fallen asleep. It's only once he'd fallen asleep that I really got a good look at his face. He looks pretty awful, like he's running on the ragged edge. I'll have to see if maybe from here on out I can feed him better. I'm not sure if food will help, but it sure can't hurt.

After Rand fell asleep I went up to the bonus room and did my best to sew up the tears in my jammie bottoms. It looks like a weed whacker got a hold of the pants but I guess that is appropriate, that matches the legs underneath. The sun is low in the sky and I know Rand is going to want to take care of the animals before it gets dark so I'm putting this journal away for now. I hope he lets me help. Maybe if I tell him it is because I want to learn how to take care Hatchet and the mules.

Momma O was right. God does seem to let us in on things in His own good time. It sure would be nice though if He would send a script down every once in a while so I could peek a couple of pages ahead.

A couple of months ago things were so much simpler. It was the end of the world and all I needed to do was make it from Tampa to here. I wasn't looking any more into the future than that. Now, looking to the future seems to be about all I think about. I can't just live in the here and now. I heard a guy on the news once calling the 21st century the era of the just in time life. But that era is dead and buried. Now I wonder if we are going backward or forward and how long is it going to take us to get there?


	31. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

 **June 27** **th** – The day has been full but full in a good way up 'til the end.

I set the alarm and actually managed to wake up before Rand did. I thought it all out before I went to sleep last night. My plan was to save the propane for emergencies-only but I figured the tree and everything else was pretty close to that. I also wanted something special to celebrate … well celebrate that Rand and I … wow, this is hard even to write in my own journal which is uber stupid. I wanted to celebrate that Rand is my boyfriend. There. See, I can say it … write it … whatever, I know what I mean.

I pulled the stove out and took it to the summer kitchen door that I rarely use. Daddy almost didn't put a door in there because that would have made three doors but Momma asked for one and Daddy hardly even told Momma "no" about something 'cause she so rarely asked for anything. Eventually he was going to build her a covered patio out there so that she could do the messy stuff outside and then just walk it straight into the summer kitchen and do whatever she had to do like canning and stuff. He never got the chance. Sometimes, if I really think about it, I know that it was a good thing that they went together 'cause I don't think either one could have made it without the other. They were like two peas in a pod, two sides of the same coin, all those clichés that sound silly until you realize there is a lot of truth to them.

So I didn't have a patio but I did have the outside AC air handlers. The big unit that was for the downstairs came up to my waist and made a pretty good table to sit the propane stove on. It gave me a whole big cooking area and boy did I cook. I fixed pancakes, hash browns, and grits with sausage TVP mixed in. While the last pancake was puffing up I fixed Tang – or whatever that "healthy" powdered orange-flavored drink is supposed to be. I put everything on a tray and was taking it to Rand right as he came stumbling out of his room.

The look on his face made me start laughing and I nearly dropped everything. He caught it and carried it to the breakfast nook while I opened a couple of windows and then opened the screens just enough to open and push back the shutters to give us some light. He thought it was for both of us and I told him that I'd eaten while I cooked. He wanted to know how he was supposed to eat it all and I told him, "Ha! Don't forget, I've seen you eat." He grinned and ate every last crumb.

I know it was silly but something about it made me smile almost all through him eating breakfast. I had to get up and clean the pans so he wouldn't catch me staring. I bent over to put away the pans and when I stood up Rand was right there close; it's like I stood up right into a hug. Rand wanted to know if it bothered me and I said no, that it just made me feel funny. He said, "Good. Look, I've kind of got a suggestion but I don't want you to get your feelings hurt. OK?"

I thought I'd messed up the food somehow but I wasn't going to let that show but all he said was, "Look, I really like … Kiri it would help if maybe you could make breakfast thirty or forty-five minutes later. That way I can get up, make sure the animals are taken care of and then wash up."

I was so relieved that it wasn't anything bad that I asked him why he thought that would hurt my feelings. "Because whether you realize it or not you … I worry about saying something that you might take as a criticism. You're sensitive which makes me think that maybe you've had a lot of that and I don't won't you to think that I'm like everyone else and picking on you."

I think maybe my crying like a baby so much has him thinking that I'm soft or something. I tried to be real diplomatic – a novelty for me - and said, "Rand, if I thought you were like everyone else I wouldn't have thought twice about you after your family took you home the first time we met. I knew right away that … look, I just don't know how to explain it. I care about what you think because I knew you were different; I knew it right from the start for some reason. I care about what your family thinks because they are your family and … well, I know that is important to you. There are some others too … like Mr. Henderson and Pastor Ken and maybe even Momma O … but only kinda sorta, unless it has something to do with you then a lot sorta. I know that this doesn't sound very nice Rand but … well … I don't have a lot of use for people. Too many have … oh, it doesn't matter why but all I know is that you're completely different, that's all. And like you said you weren't a mind reader, we'll I'm not either. I'd rather you tell me stuff like this up front and not worry about hurting my feelings. I know that … well, I know I don't know everything and that we'll have to compromise. Is that OK? Do you understand what I mean?"

He looked at me real hard and I wanted him to understand more than anything what I was trying to say. Then he said, "I think I do. You may have to remind me a few times but I think I see what you are trying to say." He must have liked the smile I gave him because he hugged me again, which I liked, and then he left real quick to go take care of the animals and mumbled something about being back in a little while.

After Rand came back in and washed up he caught me working on my to do list which included going over to the salvage houses and looking for a grill, hangers, and looking around to see if I could figure out some magical way to fix the lanai so that there was some place to go to get away from the mosquitoes without getting stuck inside.

He said, "You know, it would be a good idea to go over those houses … four of 'em right? … with a fine tooth comb. I know you said you did but … you've got the room here to store stuff and you might as well take advantage of it. If someone else finds those houses I doubt they'll care that you found them first."

"Well, technically I didn't find them first, someone took the food and stuff from the first three and I just sort of lucked out on the fourth house."

"Maybe but that last place especially is so full of stuff … Do you mind if I come along and look around again?"

I gave him a look that told him he was being silly again. Instead of climbing the fence we took the long way around through the gate at one end of the utility easement and road the mules – whose names are Bud and Lou – across the unfenced "yards" of the houses closer to US90. While we road he answered my questions about Bud and Lou.

I asked him how come they were bigger than Hatchet? I thought mules were smaller than horses. "Bud and Lou's dams were draft horses on a Mennonite farm outside of Valdosta. The stallion that sired them was on the tall side for a donkey. Uncle George thought I had lost my mind when I told him what I'd helped do and that the Mennonite agreed to let me work for them instead of paying cash. I worked my butt off that summer but at the end of it I had Bud and Lou and they've been faithful ever since. Bud is the straight man of the team and Lou is the comedian. Watch your braid around Lou, he's fond of chewing on them. Janet has stopped wearing ribbons when she is around these two because she swears they snatch them and won't give them back."

The first house smelled so nauseating now I could barely stand to go in it and the heat made everything smell rancid. Had there been something in there I desperately needed I don't think I would have taken it anyway. Rand made me stay outside but came back pretty quickly heaving and hacking and with his eyes watering. He said that the ceiling had fallen in the boy's bedroom and there was mold and mildew growing everywhere. "There's even mushrooms coming up in the carpet in what looks like the mom's bedroom." The outside of the house wasn't much better. Time and the weather and the fact the house hadn't been in very good repair when I found it were all taking their toll.

The second house I told Rand was what I called the "neat house." He showed me though that the house was primarily just for looks and really wasn't as solid as what Daddy had built. "See what you are calling built in cabinets? They aren't really. This is just a drywall alcove that they put shelves in and then used wood trim pieces to make it look like a cabinet. The trim pieces are stained nice but they're the cheap stuff, probably something they picked up at Lowe's. And the shelves? They're particle wood. Someone knew how to make something look nice but it would have taken a beating after a few years."

He also showed me what I thought was expensive furniture really wasn't. The drawer facings were wood and plastic trim but the drawers were pressed board. "You can tell this was a house that didn't have kids in it. Stuff like this is something that adults can keep nice but kids would be so rough that the new would wear off of it real fast. Aw, don't look at me like that. I'm sure they liked it and were probably nice people just trying to have nice looking stuff but I'm trying to think about what is going to last for a long, long time. My dad was always on my mom for buying new furniture every couple of years. He told her it would have been cheaper if they had paid extra and bought the good stuff in the first place instead of replacing stuff several times. It was an argument he never won. Aunt Rachel was even worse. She had the good stuff – it was just an older style – and she was always on Uncle George to buy new furniture but he wouldn't because he said there was nothing wrong with what they had that a little polish wouldn't fix."

While we were in there I asked him if there was anything he needed and he said, "A few things." Since he didn't tell me what they were I don't know. But I think he was looking for razors and shaving cream because he kept looking in the nightstands and bathrooms of the houses we went into. I guess he found some stuff because I saw him put something in his pockets. He jumped when I asked him if he'd found what he was looking for. I didn't know guys got embarrassed about razors and stuff. Of course, I didn't exactly want him seeing me looking for new pajama bottoms either.

I also saw him looking through all of the men's clothes but nothing fit right. I told him if it came close but was too big or a little too short I could maybe alter it for him. That's when we got off to talking about the fact that I could sew and when I told him I made the skirt I had worn to Laurabeth's wedding he acted like I had done something like walk on the moon. Honestly, who would have thought that he'd make such a big deal about it and then want to see the treadle sewing machine when we got home?

The one thing that the second house did have is a screened in porch. Rand says that if he can take some of the parts off of it he might be able to splice them together and fix the lanai a little better than putting plywood or sheets of aluminum siding over where the tree had taken everything out. "It won't be a perfect match but it will do the job."

I made him laugh when I told him, "You'll never notice it on a galloping horse." It's one of the things my grandmother used to say, especially if something wasn't a perfect match. Mom said she used to tell them that a lot when she was a little girl when they finally noticed that they didn't have quite the same kind of new clothes the other kids had. My mother started school in her brother's bib overalls that he'd outgrown several years before and a shirt that had been patched a couple of times that used to belong to her sister. My mom was one of those people that understood what poor really meant. But she always said that while they were poor in the pocket book they were rich in the Spirit. My dad always said that that attitude is one of the first things that attracted him to her. When I asked what were some of the other things he said, "Never you mind. I'll tell you when you're older." I think I know what he was referring to but no one likes to think of their parents like that … it's a little on the freaky side.

Rand made a pile of some other stuff out of the house and shed under a shade tree then we went on to the third house. There he piled a bunch of tools and stuff that I hadn't bothered with because one, Daddy has enough tools in the barn to last a life time and two, they were too heavy for me. When I shook my head and told him he was as bad as Daddy had been he looked and said, "How?"

"Daddy was forever going to flea markets and yard sales and picking through the tools. The only thing that Momma ever asked was for it to be kept out of the way so that my brother and I couldn't get into it. She said we got into enough as it was and he was as bad as we were about dragging out toys and not putting them away."

That made Rand laugh and we went over the rest of the house with him agreeing that there really wasn't much else worth anything except he did find some flannel shirts and a couple of work-alls that will fit him once I take them up in a couple of places. Rand's tall, he says 5'11", but whomever these belonged to before must have been as thin as Rand but at least as tall as Major Sawyer.

That reminded me to ask him about Missy and how his uncle was taking her getting married without his permission. "Well, technically she didn't need his permission. She's … 25, 27 … I can't remember which. She's several years older than Laurabeth anyway. Uncle George was just getting comfortable with the age difference between the two of them … he still sees Missy as his little wild child. It was easier for him to see Laurabeth get married because she was always the "good girl" and the steady one and you've met Jonathon. He's better now that the shock has wore off and it didn't hurt that Sawyer came bearing gifts."

When he saw I didn't understand, "I forget with everything at sixes and sevens you haven't heard. They closed the Supply Depot and there was a major pull out of the military. No one knows where they went or why just that the message came down to make it so. But the National Guard was completely put back under the control of the Governor who pulled them to Tallahassee and a couple of other strategic locations. That left Sawyer in a bad way; he's injured and not ready for active duty and so close to retirement that he didn't want to redeploy. They let him go; they are calling it terminal leave but if things were normal he'd probably qualify for disability. It'll be weeks, maybe months before he is one hundred per cent. Things were going down so fast that … don't say anything to anyone … there was only one shipment left to be picked up … some food, ammo, and that sort of thing. The Colonel that was Sawyer's boss left him in charge of it but when no one showed Sawyer tried contacting someone to find out what the hold up was. Before he could get it all out this Colonel gets on the radio and says that every item that was supposed to be picked up was. There was a kind of wink-wink-nudge-nudge thing going on so Sawyer thinks it was this Colonel's way of making sure that Sawyer wasn't just dumped down a dark hole in the middle of nowhere with nothing for his twenty." I didn't ask what it all was because I figured if I was supposed to know he would have told me.

We had lunch on a bench at the fourth house. It was just some granola and dried fruit with water to wash it down but Rand said he didn't mind because breakfast had been filling. While we sat on the bench he put his arm around me. I didn't know what to do and when he realized I wasn't relaxed like him he asked me if I was OK. We'd agreed to be honest with each other so told him I didn't know what to do he said I didn't have to do anything; we were just sitting there resting before we headed into the jungle. Actually what he said was just as silly as the way he said it. "Before we head off into the wilderness with mountains of lace covered furniture, valleys of John Deere décor, rooster wall papered cliffs, and to wade through rivers off wall-to-wall stuff." I laughed and everything was easy again. I don't understand how he does that.

But to be honest his description may have been silly but it wasn't all that far from the truth. There were a lot of little things like paperclips, post it notes, pencils, picture wire, clothes hangers, and stuff like that so Rand said to gather up the pillow cases off of the beds and we'd use them as bags. I was grabbing about the fourth pillow when all I could do is holler, "Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!"

Rand nearly broke his neck running to find out what the problem was. I pointed and he gingerly lifted up the pillow and then just about fell down laughing. It's not funny! How would you like to be going about your business and pick something up to find a bunch of wriggling, squiggling, pink baby mice. Yuck! And I am so not scared of mice I just happen to find them absolutely disgusting. They poop everyplace and they eat stuff and they make incredible messes that are totally unhygienic and gross. Bet if he had worked in a restaurant he would have hated the very thought of mice and rats too.

I told him we had to check absolutely everything again because I didn't want any mice in the house. He said he checked it before he loaded stuff into the mules' carriers. I told him I didn't care if he wouldn't check it here it was gonna go in the barn until I could check it there. He finally gave in when he saw how freaked I was.

It was getting passed time to go home and I was checking over things one more time (and trying to hide the sweat pants I found to use as jammies) and when I came out with my mouth open to say "all through" Rand shushed me with a hand up. I could tell that Lou and Bud were nervous and how quiet it had gotten. Then I heard them … the whuffling and the quiet snarling and snapping, the low growls.

I got my rifle off of Lou and walked over to where Rand was standing looking. He pointed off in the distance … maybe three-quarters of a football field away. About six dogs were going at something on the ground. Rand carried one of those kind of pirate glasses in his BOB and when he looked he got a look on his face I'd never seen. Without saying a word he pushed me back towards the mules, looked me straight in the eye and pointed at me and then to the ground. That's about as close to a "Stay!" command as he's ever given me. I might have cut up a fuss if I hadn't seen the look on his face.

He stepped to the other side of the drive way and then started shooting. He got the first five dogs with five shots but the sixth one took two shots as it took off at a fast dash to the bushes. Rand turned to me and said, "You stay right here. You see any more dogs then fire a warning shot for me but don't you move or come out there."

He walked out there real slow. He went to the pile that the dogs had been messing with and then walked to the left of it several feet and to the edge of more bushes … ones on the other side where the last dog had run. When he walked back he was pale and his eyes looked strange. "Let's go home. Can you get up on Lou? You need to practice so you can do it more quickly."

It wasn't until we were half way home that he told me. It wasn't a pile of whatever I thought it might be. It was some guy … probably a gangbanger. "There was lots of fresh blood so I don't think he was dead until the dogs … until the dogs got at him. The blood on the grass coming out of those bushes was still tacky. I didn't notice anything when we got there … so it may have happened while we were inside. Don't think the guy even had anything left to scream with … or he fainted … I don't know. Mr. Henderson cleaned out that dog pack you told him about all except for three puppies that Cassie is hand raising that are some kind of terrier mix. Once a dog has gotten … I just couldn't take the chance Kiri."

"You don't have to tell me. I got cornered inside a house once by a dog remember? I'm just glad you are such a good shot and took them out mercifully rather than take it out on them for being the animals they are."

He turned around and looked at me like he hadn't expected the reaction he got. "What?! Did you expect me to go all tree hugger anti-Bambi killer on you? They were dogs Rand. Big … bad … dogs. It's a shame they had to be put down but sometimes that happens I guess. Like I said, at least you were merciful. I couldn't have made those shots for love or money."

He was quiet all the way home and I thought I'd put my foot wrong. We were coming up the utility easement when riders ahead of us stopped. Rand whistled and they turned and waited for us to meet them. It was Mitch Peters and Hoss and Bradley.

"Was just riding by to check on things, heard some shootin'. Everything OK?"

"Kiri, head on back to the house, I'll catch up. Just tie Lou off on the ring on the side of the barn."

As I left I heard him talking to the other three men in a low voice. I pretty much knew I'd stepped in it somehow but I didn't know how to fix it. I got to the yard and nearly fell getting off of Lou. If he'd been a horse I probably would have gotten hurt. I think I like Lou even better than Hatchet. Lou seems to tolerate the fact that I don't know a thing about riding. Hatchet always acts like he is laughing at me. And Lou stands still. I found out that Rand wasn't kidding about him liking to pull on braids though. It took me a couple of minutes to convince him he'd like to chew on grass a whole lot better. I wound up have to rinse out my hair because of mule spit.

Lou let me unload him too. He did laugh at me a little bit when I tripped over a root carrying stuff to the porch but what can you expect from a mule? I had the house open and was holding a bucket of water for Lou when Rand rode in on Bud. He didn't look like he felt quite so bad so I didn't say anything. Bud wanted his share of the water and I wound up wearing about half of what they were trying to drink.

Hatchet was happy to see his two friends and Rand picketing them all near enough to gossip but not near enough to get into trouble and followed me inside. I didn't find a grill so I had to use one of my metal buckets to make coals in and that's what I did and we had the rest of the can of chili mac and it wasn't bad. I guess sealing it back up the way I did let it last longer than a week.

Rand was preoccupied so I went to go put the stuff away that we brought in. The last bedroom has a bunch of tubs in it and I've been trying to put like stuff with like the best way I can. I need to take the office supplies up to the dormer room to put them away but I haven't found the right time to tell Rand about it. I was gonna show him after dinner but he's been so quiet I didn't want to disturb him. And my foot has been bothering me for some reason. I'm about all wrote out anyway. I think I'm going to make a cake for Rand tomorrow and see if it makes things better.

 **June 28** **th** – I'm sitting here with my foot propped up and Rand threatened to sit on me if I don't stay put for the rest of the evening. The only thing he hasn't growled about is when I asked for my journal so I could have something to do.

I woke up real early with my foot more than just bothering me. It felt like someone was poking it with a hot poker and even wiggling my toes felt bad. What scared me was that my foot was kind of puffy and warm, especially the bottom. I knew I needed to soak it right away. I hobbled to the summer kitchen and was pumping some water by feel when Rand came in with the lamp … he'd gone to sleep after than I had again.

I was caught red handed but we went back and forth over him looking at my foot. I don't let anyone look at me … feet, legs, the rest of me, nothing. For some reason I hadn't thought about any of that. All I had thought about is that Rand was my boyfriend. Even when Rand talked about waiting on "benefits" I didn't think about it. I didn't want to think about it I guess. My scars. They're so ugly I still don't see how …

Anyway I was so upset that I was getting mad but he wouldn't let up. I wanted to avoid a fight so I tried to walk away only when my foot touched the ground all the way it felt like I'd stepped on a giant needle. I started to fall but Rand caught me and I just reacted and went all stiff trying not to push at him.

"Kiri … trust me."

"I do. I can do it myself. Just let me go. I'll be fine."

He didn't let go though. He picked me up and carried me over to the counter top and set me down. I tried to jump down but he just caught me and put me back up. "Kiri … I'm not going to hurt you. Are you really … you don't think … Kiri, dang it stop squirming. Is it because of your scars?"

I could have just died right there. "So that is it. Alicia said … "

"How would Alicia know?! And … and … she didn't have any right to tell anyone else! Who did she … well … I don't care … I … "

"Take it easy. It only came up casually and it was only to me. It was when she was telling me about when you two were trying to … I said stop squirming!"

I stopped but I just … if a hole could have opened up I would have jumped in and gladly. "It came up because it was something you two had in common."

It took a second for it to sink in. What he had said … Alicia … she couldn't have scars. At least I didn't think so. I know different now.

"Alicia's dad was an abuser. Where your aunt and uncle … "

"No! It was the accident."

"Oh. And it bothers you."

"Yes. It bothers me. A lot. Because I didn't think about this part."

"By 'this part' you mean me seeming them."

"Yes."

"Kiri, don't you trust me?"

"You keep asking me that. Of course I trust you. I told you that if I didn't … "

"Well, it sure doesn't seem like it. In fact, if you want to know the truth, I'm beginning to think maybe you don't trust me."

"That's not true! It's just this is different. This is .. this is … "

"Kiri, you either trust me or you don't. Which is it going to be?"

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt whatever I did or said was going to be important to me for a long, long time. Maybe forever. So I stopped squirming and let him look."

"Serves you right if you get grossed out. I haven't even shaved my legs in over a week." I know I was being a pain in the butt but I was scared and I was really sure he was going to get grossed out.

But he laughed and said, "Laurabeth hasn't shaved hers in a couple of months. She calls it going au natural."

He was poking and it was really starting to hurt. "Kiri what have you done to your feet? They're all scratched up and it looks like you have something stuck in the bottom here." When he said "here" he touched a place on my foot that hurt so bad I grabbed his arm.

He carried me out to the sofa and by the light of the lamp dug out two metal shavings that I guess I picked up while I was outside after the storm, barefooted. He said all sorts of pus and dirt came out too. It hurt when he was cleaning it out but not as bad as when he asked, "Kiri, why don't you trust me?"

"I told you I do. I let you see my ugly legs."

"Your legs aren't ugly. The scars aren't all that bad from what I can tell."

I told him it was because the light was dim. He finally let me sit up but he was on one end of the sofa and I was on the other. If I wondered about the things I said about the dogs I knew for a fact I'd hurt him this time. We sat there and I felt the hurt getting to be a bigger and bigger thing between us until I felt like screaming. He sighed and was getting up when I knew for sure that I only had one more way to show him that I trusted him.

I grabbed his hand and took him over to the coat closet. "Kiri I'm tired and … "

"Rand, I'm trying to prove to you that I trust you. Open the closet. Now, push those coats to the side. Run you hand down, yeah, you feel the leaver? Push it down."

I heard the click I always hear and then went passed him grabbing his hand again. "Watch the stairs they're narrow and steep."

We got to the top, I pulled him into the room and ahead of me so he was kind of in the center and then flipped the switch. The suddenness of the LED lights caught him completely by surprise and he just stood there gawking. "I kept trying to figure out when to tell you about the dormer room. I was going to tell you the first night but you were so tired and … then last night you were upset with me … "

"OK, first I wasn't upset with you and we'll talk about that in a minute but … this … "

"It was Daddy's." I hobbled over to the filing cabinets. "These are the rest of Daddy's files. I wanted to show them to you when you seemed so interested in the stuff in the bonus room but I didn't know how to bring it up. And here is where I sleep when you aren't here. When you are here I feel safe enough to sleep downstairs but when you aren't here … I prefer being up here. And … and this other I wanted to show you but … "

I went over to the gun safe and unlocked it and then went over to the cubby hole door, opened it and pointed. There is stuff for the guns … bullets and stuff … in there. Lots of it. I don't know how much. And in the second bonus room there is another cubby hole with some big cans of stuff from places like Honeyville, Emergency Essentials, and Provident Pantry. I just … I wanted you to be my friend because I'm me, not because of all this stuff. By the time I figured out you weren't like that I didn't know how to tell you. But this is it … this is … "

Rand was just staring and then looked at me and his face was kind of blank and I knew I'd have to do it all. "I was wrong. There is more but … I don't like this part and you won't either. The scars on my legs aren't all. I've got scars all over Rand. No one but the drunk walked away from the wreck that killed my family. I was in a coma for over a week and it was a while after that before … before they could even tell for sure that I wasn't brain damaged. I've still got problems. I get sensory overload real easy. I have APD, I've told you about that. But … the worst part has been that no matter what I can't ever forget what they had to do to put me back together. I had rods in my legs for a while. I had all these tubes and wires … I was tore up inside. I had three operations to try and fix things if you don't count what all they did just to keep me alive that first week. They would have been kinder just to have put a zipper in. I've got a scar on my lower back that people used to call a tramp stamp and … "

I had closed my eyes because I didn't want to see the look on his face. I couldn't have handled it had he been angrier still, I think I would have died had I seen pity. I didn't get either. I got hugged. I felt so bad I couldn't even cry because I knew I owed him all of it. "No. Look. This is what I look like and it's never going to get any better. I'm never going to be pretty like Julia, not even in the dark. There is no way to pretend this away. I've got the wrong kind of skin, they couldn't … they couldn't fix any of it. Some of it puckers and some of it has ridges. It's just … "

I figured he could think I was a huzzy as well as everything else but I wanted to give him the chance to make a break for it and count himself lucky or at least leave so I wouldn't have to feel his pity. So I lifted up my shirt and let him see.

I just stood there, not looking at him because I didn't want to see him looking at me. Then I felt him push my shirt down really gently and lean over and flip the light switch off and then I could open my eyes. We sat on the floor side-by-side. I hurt too bad to cry. Then Rand said, "We've really got to work on this trust thing. Both of us."

That's the last thing I remember after that until I woke up to something bothering my nose. I was so groggy headed and then when I opened my eyes and saw he was tickling my face with a fern it all came rushing back and I sat up so quick I hit my foot against the floor and was almost sick.

"Whoa! When you finally wake up you wake up fast. Let me see your foot. Kiri, this is really infected. I need to clean it out again."

I endured it all again only in freaking HD this time. "It gets hot up here during the day."

"Yeah, and cold in the winter probably."

"We can swipe the insulation out of some house and that might help."

"It has insulation. The hot air is getting trapped up here somehow. I don't think something is working right. I can't make heads or tails out of Daddy's schematics."

"If you want I'll take a look."

"Rand, I don't .. look, just how badly is this all going? I … I just can't … I don't know how to say I'm sorry enough and … "

"Shhh. I didn't realize about … about everything else and … "

"Yeah, about that. Look, it's OK. I understand. I wasn't upfront with you and …"

"Kiri … no, look at me … when I pushed you last night … I have my own hang ups. I could blame Julia but I had a choice last night and I … I just pushed. I didn't know how bad you had been hurt but if you think that I'm going to take off or that you have to bribe me with all of this to get me to still like you … that will make me angry. We … we both messed up. But let's work on that … I didn't like the way it made me feel last night when … when … look, I'm not sure how to handle this either but the only thing I saw when I saw your scars was the fact that you are lucky to be alive … and that I'm lucky that you're alive. We'll work on the rest of it as we go. OK?"

I couldn't believe my ears and I still think that maybe, while he means what he says now, one of these days it is all going to be too much. It was passed breakfast and I apologized and told Rand that I'd get something fixed right away and then Rand got upset and asked me if I'm going to keep feeling like I have to bribe him to stay. Then we had another back and forth about I like cooking for him and I had meant to feed him up so that … yeah, so he would want to stay. I hobbled to get dressed and when I came back he was gone.

It was like that off and on until late afternoon. I started a veggie stew with dumpling kind of thing for lunch and then while we were eating he kept saying I felt like I had to bribe him and I said no that I had to eat too but that I liked to see him eat, it made me feel good.

Rand had never cursed at me before but when I asked him if he wanted me to fix him blueberry or blackberry dumplings for dessert he said, "Damn it! Why do you even want me around anyway?! To chop wood? You don't need me to do anything. It's your land, your house … hell, you don't even need me to hunt or anything else. You need a pack mule?"

My heart felt like it was breaking, "You … you … make the world feel like it isn't flying apart! You make me feel safe! You're there … right when I don't think I can go another second you show up and everything is just … just … it's better! I can breathe when you're around and I've laughed and laughed and half the time I don't even know what I'm laughing at. It's never been like that for me. I just wanted all of that. But all I seem to be able to do is hurt you and make you crazy. That's all I've got to give you and it's not fair!"

I was not going to let him see me cry again. I tried to run to the house but it was more like a skip hop sort of thing. I got in the door and slammed it. Slamming the front door felt so good I went to my parents' room and slammed that one too and I would have slammed their bathroom door only it was a pocket door and there was no way to do it with any amount of satisfaction.

"Well, at least you didn't lock the door this time."

"Rand I can't take any more of this. I know I'm doing it all wrong just … just … just go … "

"No. Don't want to and I'm thinking you aren't in any shape to make me right now."

And he sat down on the floor beside me and put his arm around me and we sat there for a couple of minutes before he said, "You really aren't holding all this stuff over my head are you."

"What stuff?"

"This stuff … your house, your land, your food, your … your everything."

"You said we were together. That we were working things out."

"And you're prepared to share all of this just because I said."

"Yeah. Wasn't I supposed to? You always share stuff with me."

Rand just looked at me and then he laughed only it wasn't a good ha-ha laugh but a laugh that said it was either laugh or cry.

"Kiri, guys … guys like to think they bring something to the table in a relationship. One of the problems … look, I didn't like it when Mr. Winston used to go on about the fact that I lived on Uncle George's charity but I also had the sense to know that it was pretty well true. That's one of the reasons that I always worked so hard … I got to the point I was tired of owing people for every little thing in my life. I'm not sure what to make of all of this now. Maybe I didn't think things through either."

"I know it's a burden Rand but please … give me another chance. I warned you I'm no good at this stuff. I don't even know what I'm supposed to say most of the time. Things just come out of my mouth and it's just … "

"Kiri, you still don't get it. I'm not … I don't have anything … "

"I don't understand. Any what?"

"Kiri, a guy has to have some pride. I don't know … Kiri the sum total of what I can call my own is picketed out there eating all of your grass. What am I supposed to bring when you already have everything?"

"You mean this? All the stuff like in the dormer room and everything? But Rand, I wouldn't have it if my parents were still alive … this was theirs, their retirement home. I'd give it all up to have them back. Now, now it's … it's a place Rand. And it didn't do what I thought it was going to do for me when I got up here. It was a … a break … a chance but what I do with it from here on out is going to be what is important. You've seen me … I can't even hit a tree with an ax in the same place twice. The only things I know about are what my parents taught me and what's in the books they left behind… you know lots already … about animals, guns, building things … all that stuff. And you know about people … I know doodly squat about people."

"Doodly squat huh?"

"Don't make fun Rand, please. You know what I mean. I just don't know how to do the people thing. My mouth is always going off at the wrong time or won't work when I need it to. I don't understand people. I do when you explain things. Maybe I am brain damaged and … "

"Don't. Don't you ever say that again."

"Well, it's true. I've told you about … "

"Yeah, and I'm beginning to think that you weren't exaggerating as much as I thought you were and haven't told me half about others. So it's not about things to you."

"Things, things, what things?! Anybody and their mother can go salvage a house and have things. You're not a thing Rand. I don't know what all of this is supposed to be called but I want it and I am soooo scared that I'm already losing it and I won't even be smart enough to understand what I'm missing when it's gone."

And then … and then … he kissed me. I mean it wasn't a big suck your face off kiss like in the movies but it was still a kiss, right on the lips. And it was so nice I almost cried.

"So what you're really saying is that it isn't my body you want but my brains."

And I was still so shook by the kiss that it took me a second to realize he was playing with me and then we both laughed a lot harder and longer than the joke deserved.

This whole "relationship" and "trusting" is so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I thought we'd be able to go on just as we had before but … it feels like the world is speeding up and we aren't going to get a chance to do things slow and easy.

We are up here in the dormer room and just like I figured he would, Rand has lost himself in Daddy's files. Fraidy is happy to sprawl across the top of the metal cabinet watching us both. We're going to sleep up here because we can leave a window open and have fresh air. But Rand said that after everything he couldn't handle any more temptation so he drug up one of the mattresses and has put it on the opposite side from where I'm sleeping.

We can hear the big engines of some trucks on US90. One of the things that Mitch told Rand yesterday is that the word has gone out to stay away from the highway if a convoy comes through. They have orders to shoot to kill because right now they can't tell saboteurs from gangbangers from innocents. We've heard their guns several times. It makes me jump every time because I know it means that someone has died.

I hope they stop soon. I'm tired and so is Rand … after a day like we've had we both need rest.


	32. Chapter 31

_**Chapter 31**_

 **June 29** **th** – There has been so much to do today and so many people around that I feel like my skin has been rubbed raw with a brillo pad. My stupid foot hasn't helped. And I've been given lots of things to think about too.

I woke up when I heard Rand; he doesn't seem to need an alarm clock. He doesn't even seem to need time to wake up. "Rise and shine sleeping beauty!" I could have chucked a pillow at him and he just laughed. He went downstairs and Fraidy followed him. I got up and hobbled down the stairs and to my parents' room and got dressed to start the day … but it wasn't easy. My foot felt like someone had been beating on the bottom of it with a hammer. It wasn't swollen any more though, just sore. Still feels bruised tonight but not as bad as it did.

I put scuffies on instead of my boots and went outside to fix breakfast. The day was already a scorcher and it was pretty miserable cooking over the coals in the bucket … but the heat didn't just rise, it radiated out from the sides of the bucket too. I fixed oatmeal with dried apples and raisins, brown sugar and cinnamon. I was carrying the hot pot back inside just as Rand was coming in from taking care of the animals.

I wasn't very hungry. Between my foot and my nerves that it was going to be another day like yesterday I just couldn't get it together. Rand noticed and asked me what was wrong. I didn't want to mess things up but we also promised each other last night that we wouldn't have what Rand called "sacred cows." He meant that nothing was off limits to talk about because if we didn't we'd just wind up in the same place we had before. So I told him and waited for him to get mad.

Only he didn't. He said that we would likely argue sometimes – we both like having our own way too much – but that we could also talk it out and that he wasn't worried about another day like yesterday. Yesterday happened because we didn't know that the other had certain hang ups but now that we do we can work on it. He makes it sound so easy, which I am 99.9% positive it's not going to be, but he made me feel better about it and that was enough.

He insisted on cleaning my foot again and said there was a lot less infection. I guess all the cleaning and the triple antibiotic cream helped. He put some tape and gauze on it and then helped me to put on my socks and boots. That was embarrassing … especially the sock part because Rand kept giving me looks and smiling. I'm not sure what it was all about but it made my face hot.

We'd gone out the front door and were discussing what we needed to do for the day … I already knew that I needed to start picking the cherries when Fraidy had come out of the orchard with not one blackbird but two … but first thing I needed to get two new firepits dug. Rand told me he'd do it and I had opened my mouth to say something, I forget what, when we heard a wagon coming. "Yo, the house!"

Brendon has an amazingly big mouth. And it wasn't just Brendon; it was Brendon, Alicia, Mick, Tommy, Laurabeth, Jonathon, and Charlene. And Uncle George, Clyde, and Melly and her little boy which really surprised me. I felt like somebody had dropped a two by four on my head. Rand looked happy but I wasn't sure what to make of all these people just showing up. I had so much to do but now I was supposed to entertain company?

Rand turned about and said real quick, "Don't worry. I won't tell them about your secret room."

"Ours."

"Huh?"

"It's our secret room."

I must say something right every once in a while because Rand looked pretty happy and I don't think it was just because his family had come over.

Turns out they hadn't come just to visit but to help with the tree. I was flabbergasted. I knew Brendon had said he would bring his dad's cross cut saw over but I didn't think they'd all show up like they did. Charlene climbed down from the wagon carrying a bag of something and then Alicia came over and said, "Mr. Crenshaw got a deer early this morning but we need to do something with it quick. I've got a big tripod and if we can use your Dutch oven we'll have venison stew for lunch."

I nodded and went to get it but Rand sent Charlene into the house for it – I use it so much I keep the cast iron stuff hanging on hooks in the summer kitchen – and told me to sit on the porch while he dug the firepits I wanted. Mick and Tommy volunteered to dig the firepits and that left Rand to help unload the wagon and explain to everybody why I was limping so bad. Uncle George looked over at me and winked and said, "We can share my crutch."

I can't just sit down while everyone is working so I went over to see what Alicia, Laurabeth, Milly and Charlene were doing. The bag Charlene had been carrying held potatoes, carrots, and onions out of their supplies and I didn't know what to say but Laurabeth put her hand on my arm and said, "It's OK. Missy and Bill brought a bunch of stuff with them. They wanted to come but Bill is just now getting back on his feet and someone needed to watch Janet, she had an asthma attack during the night and she's all washed out again. Seems we no sooner think she has turned a corner than there's a setback."

Alicia was quiet and said, "Do you know how to use a pressure canner? Do you have one?" She was browning chunks of what I presumed was venison over the coals that I had used at breakfast while the fire under the tripod burnt down.

I told her I had a couple, they were my mom's but using a pressure canner over an open fire was different than using a water canner and I wasn't sure enough of it to actually do it yet.

"That's true. You ought to have Rand set up that pot belly stove you have out in the barn and … "

Rand came around the corner, "What pot belly stove?" When I told him the one he kept tripping over every time he went in Daddy's junk room he had to go see for himself. He came out a little while later and popped me on my behind with his hat and told me he'd get it put together in the next day or two. I blushed … I'm not used to people touching much less that kind of thing, certainly not with people around, but no one seemed to think anything wrong with it so I didn't say anything either.

Alicia was dumping the browned chunks of venison into the Dutch oven and adding onion, garlic, and some other seasonings with some water and she told me they'd need to simmer for at least an hour and a half before adding the potatoes and carrots. The boys finished the holes and wanted to know what I needed them for. I told them I needed two because it was too crazy when I tried to can over just one and I needed to start canning cherries.

Everyone looked at me eagerly and then Rand called the boys and they came back carrying the grates I had used over my old firepits. "Rand said they were able to get these out for you and that you ladies are supposed to stay over here so they can use the cross cut without worrying about you all getting in the way and getting hurt. We have to go back and help the men." Then the two little turkeys strutted off.

Laurabeth just rolled her eyes and Charlene complained about "chauvinist piglets." It reminded me a lot of how it was when my family would get together on my grandparents' farm and it made it hard to talk when I realized that Momma and Daddy would have liked these people. Like Daddy would have said, "They suffer from the same kind of crazy as us."

With everyone there to take part, it didn't take near as long to do things. We had one tree picked clean of ripe cherries in no time. Charlene got a kick out of using Momma's cherry pitter. We used the less than pretty cherries to make juice the same way I made blueberry and blackberry juice. It took a little more sugar to knock the edge off of the bite but that was about it.

The other things we made were cherry preserves, cherry pie filling, spiced sweet cherries, pickled cherries, and cherry butter. As soon as our buckets were emptied we would go back out and pick over the next tree. With both canners going on both fires it wasn't as hard to stay ahead either. And the boys built us a fourth fire that we could boil the jars over when we wound up needing it.

When we had enough jars, I used that fire to make a Cherry Slump for dessert using my smaller Dutch oven. You take two and a half cups of sour cherries and pit them. Sprinkle half cup of sugar over the cherries and gently toss them to coat. You spread the cherries out evenly in the bottom of your pan. Then you mix another half cup of sugar with three-quarters cup of flour, and a half cup of chopped nuts and spread that out evenly on the cherries. Then you cut up about the equivalent of a stick of butter over the top of that and sprinkle a little cinnamon to finish it off. From there you bake it for about thirty-five minutes at about 400 degrees. While Uncle George was eating his share later on he asked if the girls had written the recipe down and then realized he didn't have cherry tree and started floundering. I said I made it with fresh this time but they should be able to make it with the canned ones they were taking home.

Everybody looked at me like they were surprised … except for Rand, he understood and knew that I wasn't just going to let them help with all of the work and not get any of the rewards. I also told them that as soon as the trays of cherries dried that they'd have some of those as well.

Melly was quiet the whole time they were here and so was her little boy. But it was a healing quiet, like she needed to be part of things without being forced into actively participating yet. Clyde came over several times to check on them. I finally got the little boy to smile when I remembered and ran and got one of my brother's old toys. It was an old dumptruck and he played with it in the sand until he fell asleep for a nap in his momma's lap. I told Melly to please let him keep it when she told him it was time to give it back when they were leaving. Last I saw he still had the old thing in a death grip where he sat between a couple of hay bales as they rolled down the road.

After they left it suddenly got very quiet again … but it was a relief. I liked having them over but I was wore out from being on my best behavior for Rand's sake. Rand was wore out period. Earlier when I had walked over to see what they had done I found that they hadn't just cut up the part of the tree that had fallen, they had also cut down the piece of the tree that had been left standing. Uncle George said the heart of the tree had been burnt out and that it didn't make any sense to leave up what was just going to fall down eventually any way. The mules were put to good use dragging the big pieces out of the way.

Brendon put some of the wood in their wagon but ninety percent of it is still stacked in different piles on the other side of the barn. I saw it when I saw Uncle George and Rand talking. I asked Brendon what they were so serious about and he laughed, "Dad is probably giving him the talk like he gave me, Jonathon and Bill the other day."

"What talk?"

Brendon turned about and looked at me and noticed I didn't get it and then the other Brendon peeked out and said, "Don't worry about it. If it is important Rand will explain it." Looking back on it now I bet Brendon thinks I'm completely senile or something.

Rand and I both agreed we weren't hungry for a big meal but that a couple of the leftover pan biscuits I had made with some cherry preserves would suit us to a T. We were both washing up in the kitchen when I saw his shirt had gotten torn and I told him to go ahead and give it to me. I could do the laundry tomorrow just as well as I could do it on Saturday.

He was moving pretty ginger and that's when I saw that while he was a lot more healed than he had been last time I saw him after Laurabeth's wedding he was still messed up. I felt like giving him a little heck over not taking it easier and made him stay put while I started cleaning the scrapes and bruises he still had.

I didn't notice anything until he cleared his voice a couple of times and told me we needed to talk. I don't care who says it, I know that tone. I thought I had done something wrong but when I asked him he told me absolutely not and that was kind of what we needed to talk about.

"Kiri, things at Uncle George's place look like they are going to be a mess for a while longer and … "

"You have to go? So soon?"

"You don't want me to go?"

"No," I just barely managed to whisper.

"Well, that's good. I don't want you to want me to go. Actually what I was saying was that they are going to be a mess for a while longer. They are trying to figure a way to move a trailer onto the place for Missy and Bill but that's going to take something only the Hendersons have right now. And even if Uncle George can come up with enough trade to get fuel from him they still need a trailer and a truck to pull it and someone who knows how to drive the truck to pull it. They're thinking it would actually be easier to build a house from scratch but that won't get finished for months. And Brendon wants a place for him and Alicia too which has Uncle George in a knot. That means I might need to stay here for a good long while."

"Why do you have to go back at all? Your stuff is here. Hatchet and Bud and Lou like it here. You've got your own space and … and … "

"Are you sure about this Kiri? Because, like we talked about yesterday, a guy has to have some pride."

"I … I don't want you to think I'm trying to pressure you or bribe you to stay. I know you said guys need … their own stuff."

After a deep sigh he walked me over to the sofa and we sat down. "It's gonna be about more than stuff Kiri. People will talk."

"About what?"

And that when he barked out a big laugh. "Kiri, I swear … people are going to think we are having sex. OK?"

"Ooooohhh. But … but … but we aren't."

"Nope. But I want to … one of these days … when you want to and are ready for that."

Oh brother. Talk about freaking out. My whole voice did the whole stupid squeaky mouse thing. "You said we … that the 'benefits" stuff was … I mean … "

"Whoa, I didn't say it was going to happen today or tomorrow or even next week. I'm saying that I want to, not that we will any time soon. I know it is different for girls and … "

That brought me up short and made me want to throw something at him again. "Rand, I don't know where you got your information from but even I know that girls feel the same sort of thing. You make my insides go all wiggly and squiggly. Some of the girls that I heard talk about it just do it for different reasons … like it makes them feel powerful and in control and stuff like that."

I almost laughed at the look he had on his face. "Wiggly and Squiggly huh?"

"Rand … " I said giving him a warning.

"Yeah, about that … Uncle George decided that I needed a little … advice. He's not quite sure he likes me living here with you but he honestly doesn't see a good alternative. You need the help, I need a place to stay … but the temptation is … is to make there be a lot more to it than that."

I told Rand I could just die. His uncle was talking about … about … Rand and I doing …

"Relax. Don't be upset. Uncle George was just being a good parental unit. And he's a guy and knows what it is like. And he likes you and doesn't want to see you get hurt. I told him that nothing was happening and he believed me and was relieved. If things were normal this wouldn't ever come up. I never planned to live with Julia until … oh boy, don't look like that, don't get your feelings hurt. I just meant in a perfect … or at least more normal … world I hadn't planned on living with someone until we got married. But this isn't anywhere near a normal time and it's not going to be like that for a long time; maybe a long, long time. What? Are you still upset that Uncle George said something?"

How was I supposed to say that he lost me after he said the "M" word? That was just too big … to go from not ever even thinking I'd have a boyfriend to having one like Rand to yesterday's big scary blow up to now talking about … about sex and then … marriage? I almost couldn't breathe. I know he wasn't talking about marriage with me but it was still more than too much.

Rand figured something had upset me though and hugged me until the shakes stopped. "Stop worrying about it Kiri. I said I want to not that I need to or that you have to or I'm going to leave? Is that what you're upset about?"

I had to tell him something. "Not exactly. It's just too much Rand. I can't .. I don't even know if I'm ready to think about it much less anything else."

"Well, you're in luck then because Uncle George was moving things along a little too quick for me too. How's that for getting along? We're already thinking alike? Two peas in a pod, that's us."

And then he poked me in the ribs and … it was just alright again. Just like that. Sure, it is still floating around in the back of my head but it doesn't seem like something I have to worry about right now, not if I don't want to. Which is nice because it seems like we've got more than enough to worry about as it is.

Uncle George wasn't just giving him the you-know-what talk but had also told him that people were just up and disappearing. Sometimes there was a sign of a struggle. Sometimes it looked like they'd been about to sit down for dinner and just walked away. Sometimes you could tell they'd packed up and left.

A few could be put down to leaving the area of their own free will. Apparently two of the families on the county road where the Crenshaws live decided to leave and packed up what they could on horseback and took off about four days ago. They are headed to family they have on the other side of the Georgia line. They just left everything behind. If it didn't fit on their horses they gave it away. But there have been enough of the other kinds of disappearances that people are getting twitchy.

And animals are going missing too or found drug off into the bushes and slaughtered. The dog packs are getting bolder again as well. So are the gangbangers though apparently some of them hacked the folks in the convoy last night off so much that they took off and burned their camp down to the ground … people and all. Several families were lucky that the fire was stopped by a creek or the loss of life and damage to property could have been even higher.

Rand said from here on out nothing stops my shooting practice but bad weather … and it has to be really bad weather too. Now that he knows about all the ammo in the cubbyhole he says I can't use the excuse that it will use up all of the bullets. I never made that excuse; I think he was just teasing me. He knows that even having been forced to … well to use deadly force … I'm still not very comfortable with firearms though I'm not afraid of them any more either.

Rand also wants to go around the house and make a list of repairs and projects to make a list of supplies from so we can be on the lookout for them. And he wants to check out some of the houses further away to see if they've been completely combed through or not. Clyde and Brendon helped him get the stuff to fix the lanai with today but he says he wants to make the project list and check those other houses before he starts.

Rand is already asleep and snoring. I couldn't go to sleep without trying to get some of this straight in my head. I wish things … oh, I don't know what I wish. I just know that my life is suddenly nothing at all what I expected it to be. Guess that is "God's Timing" thing that Momma O was talking about. I just feel like I need a how-to guide so I don't mess things up.

 **June 30** **th** – Tired, sweaty, and hot. That is about the sum total of this day. Oh yeah … add gross, disgusting, sad, uncontrollable heaving and a mild case of hyperventilation. Can't leave out the hyperventilating, it just wouldn't be the same without it. I acted so totally like a girl.

Day was nice when we got up, just muggy. It rained a little over night which I was glad for. Carrying buckets of water to the plants is hard work and a soak from a shower usually means I can skip either the morning or afternoon watering. This time I didn't have to do the morning which left me some time to make a kind of hash brown skillet casserole kind of thing with dry shredded potatoes, freeze dried ham, powdered eggs, onion, and cheese.

While that was cooking I got two canners of cherries going and set a bucket of them aside in the cool of the house to take to Momma O. I opted to only cook two batches so that I could have time to help Rand go over the house after I took a little time to practice my aim. He said there were a few things that needed tending to but overall things looked good. He also made a list of projects that he wanted to talk to me about and I told him … well, I told him I trusted him and all he needed to tell me was what I needed to do for my part. The look on his face was worth saying it that way. He kissed the topped of my head and said we'd talk about it anyway but later, we needed to get ready for what we had planned for the afternoon.

I fixed extra biscuits at breakfast and for lunch I filled them with a kinda of chicken salad that used the freeze dried chicken pieces, some dried apple and some raisins. I had to make my own mayo. We used to do that at the diner if we didn't want to open a new gallon jar. You take three tablespoons of evaporated milk, one quarter teaspoon of salt, one quarter teaspoon of paprika, one quarter teaspoon of prepared mustard, and a pinch of white pepper and mix it all together. Then you whisk in a half cup of vegetable oil a little bit at a time. Last you add three to four teaspoons of lemon juice. It made about three quarters cup and was just enough to make the chicken salad ingredients stick together.

While Rand saddled the three mounts he asked if I would bring the bags and pillow cases that we used before just in case. I put them in a bag I slung around my neck and Lou stood very still and even seemed to bunch up his muscles in a way to give me an easier time of getting into his saddle. What was even funnier was when he turned his head sideways as if to make sure I was ready before he began to walk. Rand tried to get him to trot but he looked at Rand like, "Are you crazy? You want me to dump her on her head?"

Rand gave up with a shake of his head and said we'd go by Momma O's first and then work our way back through some areas he had picked out. When we got there Ms. DeLois, Momma O's daughter, came out and said everyone was down with colds and wasn't fit for company. I told her I had brought the bucket of cherries as I promised as a down payment on our trade and she took it inside grateful to have something to do besides fetch and carry for her family. Rand had us stop for a moment and he chopped enough wood for me to carry and fill up their wood box on the back porch. We are supposed to go back tomorrow to check and see if they need anything more.

Cutting down one of the nameless private roads off of the highway, Rand took us passed houses that had obviously been ransacked. Then we went down another road and suddenly Lou wouldn't go any further. Rand, who was riding Hatchet and leading Bud kept going until Bud jerked on his lead. "Rand, Lou won't … "

"Kiri, hold on!"

Lou and Bud suddenly lined up side by side, Lou facing one side of the road and Bud the other. All I could do was hold on. Hatchet had laid his ears back and I could feel that Lou was all tense. Rand had his rifle out and was trying to locate what had set the mules off when out of the bushes charged several large dogs. One leapt and grabbed me by the ankle trying to pull me down and off. Lou spun, lifting the dog off the ground and Bud kicked out at the dog sending it into the roadside ditch.

I re-seated myself and leaned low against the saddle and the mule's neck and held on for dear life. Lou spun and kicked at the dogs that had come after us. I heard Rand's rifle bark several times as well as yelps and crunching things as the mules fought. It was over as quickly as it started. Lou was shaking and it took me a minute to open my eyes and realize Rand was say, "Kiri … Kiri … pat Lou's neck. Tell him it's OK. He won't let me near him. Kiri … "

I finally got hold of myself and when I did Lou did too. I love Lou. And Bud too. I would have been dog chow if they weren't mules. If I had been on Hatchet I never would have made it. He would have dumped me and run off. As it was Rand pulled me out of the saddle and held me while we both shook worse than the animals did. I could tell he was still watchful even while he held me so tight my nose was squashed into the pocket of his shirt but all of our steeds were calm so the dogs that had escaped were long gone.

"We'll get home in no time. You can ride … "

"No!"

"Kiri, I know you had a scare but you can't give up on riding, you need … "

"No … I mean no we don't need to get right home. We came out and I'm not letting crazy, vicious dogs stop me. Unless you mean … oh! … are any of them hurt?! Lou! Bud! Hatchet!"

"Take it easy. They're fine. Kiri, it's OK. Look at 'em. They're just standing there smelling the wild flowers."

He hugged me to him again. "If you're sure, we'll keep going. The area I'm thinking of isn't too much further."

Lou seemed tired so I asked Rand if we could go slow and I kept telling Lou and Bud how good they both had been. They seemed to like it. Their ears kept flicking around like they were really listening to me.

It wasn't long before I could tell Rand was getting a little upset as we passed house after house, trailer after trailer, all of which were trashed, burned, and/or obviously a waste of time for us to even stop and investigate. "I'm sorry. This looks like it was a fool's errand. Let's cut across here and just head back."

"Head home … "

"Yeah, head home," he corrected with a tired grin tinged with disappointment.

The houses had thinned out to one every eighty acres or so if that when Rand stopped and stood up in his stirrups and then took us off into a densely treed area. In the middle was a clearing and in the clearing was a house with several outbuildings and a heavily fenced area attached to the old barn … we had found where Pretty Boy came from. There were a couple of hens sitting in the branches of the tree inside the fenced off area. There were a lot more dead ones all over the ground.

"Helllooooo the house!" No answer. You get to recognize the feeling of empty but Rand refused to take chances. I wasn't allowed off Lou until he'd checked the house, barn, and shed.

When he finally let me go in the house he said, "It smells like old people."

"Rand Joiner!"

"Well, it does. Like the nursing home over in Branford where the youth choir used to go sing a couple of times a year."

To be honest he was right but it just sounded so disrespectful to say so out loud. There wasn't a sign of anyone except for a plate with some maggots on it sitting in the kitchen sink. There was a good layer of dust on everything too and the ashes in the fire place were days old according to Rand … how he could tell I have no idea. You could also see where it had rained in one of the back windows that had been left open.

"I'd say at least a week, maybe a day or two more, maybe a day or two less."

"But … do you think this is one of those houses were people are just disappearing from?"

"Babe, if I knew I'd tell you. But given the state of things I'm going to count this abandoned property. If someone shows up … well, we'll deal with it then. Start in the back of the house and work your way forward. Absolutely anything that could be useful, you bag up and pile in the front room. I'm going to look in the barn."

I tried not to let it get to me but with pictures of people staring down from almost every wall of the house it was hard not to feel like an intruder. Mostly it was just odds and ends until I got to the kitchen. There was quite a bit of cast iron cookware and speckleware. One kitchen drawer held enough old butcher knives it would have made my Daddy envious. And someone went a little wild buying Tupperware because there was a lot of the really old orange, yellow, brown, and green "burping" canister sets to stock a yard sale with. I took every piece and used it to hold everything I could.

When I opened a closet I couldn't believe what I saw. There was a slew of half pints and pints of all sorts of vegetables, fruits, and homemade condiments, all lined up like I wanted to have my own looking some day. Most of the jars were dated only a couple of months ago, none more than a year. Rand came in when I called him and asked what he thought we should do with it.

He kissed me on the top of the head again … I think he likes to remind me how short I am … and said, "Pay dirt. There's a small wagon and harness in the barn. It isn't in real good shape but I think it will get us home so long as we aren't rough or try to take it through ditches. Bud has been trained to pull single and we'll load Lou and Hatchet and we'll walk 'em back. You bring that screwdriver and those wire cutters of yours?"

I handed them over and started moving stuff to the front porch. Even trying to be judicious it was a pile of stuff and I wasn't sure we'd get it all in one load, especially if we were going to have to be careful. Well, it wasn't long after that that nature started calling and I told Rand not to look or I'd wish chiggers on him while I went out back of the house … the bathroom was just too gross for me to feel comfortable using; there were flies and cigarette butts down in the bowl.

Once out there I noticed a little building and realized it was an old-fashioned out house. I thought, "Why not?" I walked over to it and remembered that sometimes wasps would build their nests in the camp latrines at Girl Scout camp. Sure enough I heard something and used the barrel end of my rifle to gingerly open the door.

I slammed the door back shut so scared that I squeezed the trigger of the rifle making it go off and I turned and ran. Rand came running from the barn and caught me. I was in a panic and barely realized it. I pushed him out of the way and then upchucked in the gladiolas and when I was finished I started hyperventilating.

Rand sat me on the porch and put my head between my knees and gradually the hyperventilating turned into hiccupping cries. Rand told me he'd be right back even though I kept shaking my head for him not to go.

Even now, miles distant from what I saw and cuddled up against Rand's leg while I write this I have a hard time not shaking. The old lady had apparently gone to the outhouse and had a heart attack, stroke or something. She'd been sitting there a while. I had attributed the smell to the ripeness of a latrine in summer and the sound I thought was wasps was … was … rats.

Rand came back looking as green as I felt and sat down on the porch and held me while I continued to cry.

"Yo, Joiner … we heard a shot. She crying 'cause she missed?"

"Shut up Chase," Mr. Henderson grumped. "You OK girl?"

"Rats … rats … " was all I could get out before I leaned over and started crying again.

Chase Peters laughed, "Rats? I knew there had to be something that would finally scare your girl but who would have thought it would be little bitty … "

Chase yelped as Rand dragged him off his horse and around the back of the house. Mitch, who had gone to make sure that Rand didn't do a permanent type of injury to Chase said that Rand opened the outhouse door and practically threw him in. It took Chase nearly twenty minutes before he stopped puking and could get back up on his horse. I don't remember hearing a sound from him after that.

I was embarrassed and felt so cold despite the heat of the day that Rand made me lay down on the porch with an old chenille bedspread over me. Mitch, Hoss, and Mr. Henderson helped Rand to harness Bud to the wagon and load things up.

"Child, look a here at me. Rand! You need to get this girl home. Her eyes are near about as big as her face. Boys, finish loading them animals down and anything left push it back inside the front door. Rand you can come back for it tomorrow. The girl's shocky and needs to be put to bed. We'll ride back to your place and tomorrow we'll come back and give that old woman a decent Christian burial. One more day won't make a difference to her now."

I remember being lifted up and put on the wagon bench and told to hold on but I don't remember much of the ride back home. It was getting late and Mr. Henderson and the others had to head out quickly as they were already late for a rendezvous. Rand opened the house back up and took me inside and put me on the sofa and made me drink some water. I must have zoned out for a long time because suddenly it was later and Rand was trying to feed me some broth. I blinked and blinked and blinked trying to clear the fog from my brain. After I drank the cup of broth Rand went back outside took care of the animals, putting them in the barn for the night.

I realized while he was outside that everything was in the house and all over the place. I was trying to make some order out of the chaos and not having much luck when Rand came in and locked the house down. "Leave that 'til tomorrow. It'll keep. Let's get comfortable and go upstairs."

"Get comfortable" is what we say when we mean let's get ready for bed; we kind of talk around the fact that we are sleeping in the same room. I was starting to feel embarrassed. Not about going up to the dormer room but about the way I had acted. But Rand wouldn't let me. He said people just get to a point and then their brain is gonna do what it is gonna do. He said it doesn't mean you're weak, it just means that your all full up until your brain processes some stuff and gives you room to work with.

I was going to look through Momma's cookbooks but I haven't had the inclination. All I've wanted to do was write this stuff out of my system. Put it in some semblance of order and … hopefully find room in my brain to work with.

Rand reaches down every few minutes and pats me or touches my face. I don't even think he realizes he is doing it half the time. I don't mind. We're supposed to go back tomorrow and get the rest of the stuff and it is going to take the best part of me and lots of hard work to make myself go.


	33. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

 **July 1** **st** – Another new month. I used to hear Momma and Daddy say things about how fast time was moving and when I said – I don't know how they put up with my mouth sometimes – that time moved the same speed that it always had they'd just tell me that I'd understand when I was older. Well, I'm not that much older and I understand. Not only is it moving faster, there isn't enough of it.

I was just putting Rand's breakfast on the table (I had a hard time bringing myself to eat) when a wagon and a buggy pulled in. The wagon held Uncle George, Brendon … and shock of all shocks … Bill Sawyer. The buggy was Pastor Ken's. I ran to make sure there was enough coffee to go around. Or I would have run if I hadn't felt like I was moving in molasses.

I was bringing the coffee pot to the front porch with some mugs when Uncle George hobbled over and tilted my chin back and said, "Sugar, you don't look so good. Sit over here and we'll fetch our own coffee."

I guess my brain wasn't firing too well because I couldn't figure out how he knew or if he was talking about something else. Pastor Ken came over and was checking my blood pressure and pulse and doing all sorts of things before I could even protest. While he was doing that I heard the other men talking about how Mr. Henderson's man Hoss had family out on Big Tick Road which ran crossways from the Crenshaw's place and he stopped by on his way to visit them on his day off last night. Pastor Ken had heard from Mr. Henderson himself while he was checking on Momma O and her family and who had asked him to come back and have a look at me. The buggy and the wagon had met at our front gate and come back together.

When Pastor Ken was finished he and the others started talking quietly amongst themselves. Part of me felt like I should say, "Hey, I'm right here! Don't talk about me like that!" But I was also intimidated and didn't want to embarrass Rand in front of his family. Keeping Rand's approval won out and I went inside and started moving stuff around again.

"There you are. Look Uncle George wants to go over to that house and we're going to use his wagon since it is bigger and in better shape. Pastor Ken has to go too to collect information on who lived there so there's really no reason for you to go. Kiri? Babe? Do you need to go lay down?"

"Rand, I'm not sick. And I'm not weak. I'm sorry I lost control yesterday but that doesn't mean you have to … to … to act like I'll fall apart all over again."

"I didn't say you … oh …" Then he cleared his voice and started over. "Kiri, you had a very bad reaction to what happened. Pastor Ken said it might not be a good idea … "

"Well, good for Pastor Ken and good for you. If you don't want me to go just say so. Don't whisper about it behind my back."

"Don't be like this."

"OK. How would you like it if you were standing right there and people started talking about you and making all of the decisions 'for your own good'?"

"You're right. I wouldn't. But … you asked me to say it and I will. I don't want you to go. I didn't like that you saw that to begin with. It scared me to see how bad you were shook up. I don't want you to go back there today because we're going to bury that woman and it is going to be a horrible job. I don't want you to see it."

Well, at least he was honest. I had to give him credit for that. "Fine. I'll stay here but it will be because I choose to and not because you all think I should. And here's another thing for you to think on. I was on my own a long time before you and your family came along. I saw things Rand. That woman wasn't the first dead body I've seen. She may have been the worst but trust me, not by much. Rats, roaches, flies … there isn't a whole lot of difference in the gross factor. I freaked out yesterday. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I could because I knew you were there, maybe not. Whatever. But I got up and kept going after all the times before and I've dumped more than one dead body and I did it without anyone's help. I don't need to be babied like I'm incapable of dealing with things."

I turned around and grabbed a laundry basket full of cans and jars to take them to the summer kitchen to put away. Before I got two steps he took the basket away and set it back down turned me around and hugged me. "I don't want to think about all the things you've had to do Kiri. Just let me do this so you don't have to and don't make me take you with me back there just to prove I don't think you're a weakling."

"Is this one of those guy things you were talking about?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

"Fine. So long as you know that I'm only staying home for you and not because I need to."

"Fine. So long as you know that I know you are staying home because … aw crap. Forget it." And then he kissed me … even harder than the first time. "Stay near the house and we probably won't be back until after lunch but if you could have maybe something for when we do come back … I just don't know how much we're going to feel like eating."

After they left I got to thinking and realized it wasn't necessarily a bad thing that I was staying home. The house was a mess and there was a bunch of stuff to put away. I'd missed cleaning day yesterday. The sheets needed changing on the beds. I had laundry to do. The cherries needed picking again. I needed to change out the trays in the dehydrator. And when I went out to the orchard what do I find? The raspberries are coming in.

First I dumped the dirtiest load of clothes into the tub and dumped water and detergent on them to soak. Then I ran outside and picked a bunch of cherries, pitted them, and dumped them in a pot to cook for juice very glad that I hadn't completely put the coals of the fire out yet. While that was going I ran back inside grape-stomped the laundry and then drained the water off of them and put more water on top. I got back outside just in time to keep the cherries from boiling over. I dumped those into the colander to drain on the counter in the summer kitchen to keep the flies out then pitted a bunch more and traded out the drying trays splitting the dried cherries between the two houses with a small bag to give to Pastor Ken in case he came back by the house. I also put some cherries on to make preserves with and started some jars boiling.

After sliding the trays back into the dehydrator I ran inside and found I'd need to give the dirty clothes a second rinse and took care of that and then had to rush back outside to save the preserves. Got the preserves jarred up and sealing and realized I hadn't gotten any kind of lunch started. I made up two skillets of pan biscuits and while those browned I decided to sneak up and get another can of the Mountain House stuff – spicy oriental chicken and vegetables. I dumped a load of Ramen noodles to cook in there at the same time. The Ramen absorbed the liquid that the Mountain House stuff didn't and I dumped some soy and a can of pineapple tidbits in there too. It made my eyes water but I knew guys usually like spicy stuff so figured it would be OK.

I left it in the Dutch oven to keep it warm and then picked a bunch of raspberries. I cleaned them and put them in a bowl in the kitchen and put a little sugar over them. By the time the guys came back I figured they would be sweet and juicy. I had to cover everything with cheesecloth because all my going in and out was letting flies in. I wish I had had time to make whipped topping but I didn't. You can make it using powdered milk but it would have to wait for another time, the cherry preserves were ready to come out of the canner and the juice was ready to go in.

The first load of laundry was finally finished so I got them out and hung up while the next load … this one of jeans … was on a first soak. Thank goodness Rand isn't the type that has to have a brand new pair of jeans every day. And he is good about picking up his own clothes. He said college taught him that when suddenly there wasn't a clothes fairy to come along and do it for him. It was house rules at Aunt Wilma's that everyone was responsible for their own laundry, guess it amounts to the same thing.

After that and getting the juice out of the canner I decided it was just too doggone hot to work over the fire any more. Lunch was passed and I decided to "check" on the raspberry short cake to see if it was any good before I gave it to the men. It was. I spent the next hour putting stuff away around the house though it didn't look like it. Mostly looked like I was making a bigger mess than I had before. That's one of the reasons why I preferred to leave stuff in the barn and bring it in a bit at a time.

I was just starting to get a little worried when I heard Rand and the others return. I ran outside and saw Pastor Ken come around real quick and he had blood on his shirt. He saw me and my face and said quickly, "Everyone is fine but if you could get some water boiling so we can clean up it'd be appreciated."

Then over the hedge I heard, "I'm fine Kiri, none of the blood is ours." I didn't trust that overly-innocent announcement but let it go while I got buckets full of water and set them on the front porch. One look at Rand's face and I was hacked. "I thought you said none of the blood was yours!"

He'd been in a fight and I could tell he was likely to have another black eye. He's nose had certainly played fountain all down the front of his shirt. "Uh, well, the real blood isn't ours. I forgot about this."

Yeah, right. Brendon started snickering until I slapped him in the face with a wet rag and then Uncle George started up, "Never try and hide anything boys. The truth will always come out."

Mr. Henderson, Mitch (no Chase), and Bradley were also there. Mr. Henderson added insult to injury by saying, "Especially not from a short little thing with a hot temper. How you feeling girl?"

Well, I had enough clean plates thank goodness but I had to split the biscuits in half for the short cake but no one seemed to mind. They told me their story while they ate.

They took care of the old woman's body first thing and then started loading what was left to bring back into the wagon. It would have been a full load for the little wagon we used yesterday but it barely filled up half of Uncle George's … until they found a bunch of old canning jars out in the barn. Some of them are the really old blue-green color so they can't be used for canning but they'll come in handy for storage according to Mr. Henderson. When I looked at him he said, "According to my housekeeper anyway. You remember Silvo? Hortencia is his mother's aunt. She's been with me … oh, bought twenty years now and helped raise Cassie. That woman has forgotten more stuff than most have ever learned in the first place."

It was while Brendon was trying to catch the three hens left alive and the others were putting some hay in the wagon box to try and keep the jars from clanking together that they were snuck up on by a group of armed people. "These weren't bangers. But they weren't from around here as far as I could tell either." Pastor Ken, who knew most of the people left if not by name by face said he hadn't recognized any of them either.

"Six men and two women and they all look like they'd been road hard and hung up wet. I didn't have an axe to grind with 'em until they started shooting with no cause. Rand here even offered to split stuff with 'em if they were as desperate as they claimed. People get what they dish out and since they were dishing out lead they got it in return." And that is all Mr. Henderson had to say on the subject. He may be as rough as an old corncob but he won't stand for some behaviors and this put a permanent end to the problem in his mind.

It took us the better part of an hour to unload the wagon and say goodbye to everyone. I sent all three groups off with some cherries (they would have been overripe by tomorrow anyway) and tucked the dried cherries in the wagon and in Pastor Ken's buggy. Rand still wouldn't let me fuss over his eye and nose; he said there was too much work to do. We put the three little banty hens in the dog run and gave them some feed and fruit and a little bit of the hay to scratch around in. Pretty Boy was fascinated. He strutted back and forth along on the sides of the run and kept looking in to see what those feathery things were. The hens had been nervous but settled down after an hour out of the crate they had been transported in. They certainly seemed taken with the feed and fruit and having some place new and interesting to scratch around in.

I asked Rand, "Besides the obvious of just being nice, what did they get out of helping load that stuff and bring it back?"

"Huh? Oh, you are a suspicious little thing aren't you," he said with a wink. But after he shook his head he said, "Actually yeah, I'm going to go back tomorrow and help Uncle George to take some stuff off of the house so that it can be stored at their place and used to build Bill and Missy's place and to enlarge the main house even more. Instead of a separate house for Brendon and Alicia they've decided to build a separate but connected 'house' on the back. I'm still not seeing it but whatever, it's their place. Henderson is just happy to see some of the vacant buildings getting taken care of. He's having a hard time with rats in his … in his fields and barns. As we get some wet weather he plans on burning the most dilapidated buildings first and then going from there."

The jeans were still damp when I brought them in so I hung them on the inside line but at least I didn't have to cook. Rand popped some popcorn that he had found in a jar and that was our dinner. He didn't even finish his bowl. He was snoring like a lawnmower. He'd already taken care of the animals but I went out and checked on the chickens one more time and I watched as Pretty Boy shooed them into the barn and I shut and locked the door.

I've been working on my lists and journal for the last hour but I think we could both do with an early night. Tomorrow promises to be another busy day even if it is supposed to be the Sabbath.

 **July 2** **nd** – Glug, glug, glug, glug … that's me drowning in work. When it was just me I could do things or not do things at my own pace but now there is Rand and the animals and the constant visitors that make doing things that way impossible. True, today Uncle George and the rest only stayed long enough to fill their canteens and to drink a glass of tea but it still meant stopping what I was in the middle of.

On top of that I felt guilty about breaking the Sabbath. But, Rand did make me laugh … or rather something he brought home did. They found a couple of more hens that had been hiding in the barn but these you wouldn't believe. My goodness! They look like they have mops on their feet and on their heads and are funniest looking chickens I've ever seen … they look like a brown dust bunny without ears. If Pretty Boy and his new girlfriends do make chicks I can't imagine what they are going to look like. Pretty Boy looks like a small Rhode Island Red rooster like my grandmother used to have. One of the hens looks like Pretty Boy. Two of the hens look like they are wearing prison gear … they have like these black and white stripes all over them. The two new ones … well, like I said they are kind of camel colored brown (they hid in the hay very easily) and they have puffs of feathers on their heads and on their legs and feet.

I finished the clothes and the bed linens not too long after Rand left and before starting on more canning. I got quite a bit done actually. I think I'm going to have to just stick to one type of job at a time. Yesterday when I was running back and forth trying to do too many things at once I was wasting time. This time by finishing the laundry and then starting to can I felt more in control of what I was doing because I could focus.

Today I'd do a batch of cherry stuff and then a batch of raspberry stuff then back to the cherries then to the raspberries. I made some raspberry vinegar, raspberry syrup, raspberry relish, pickled raspberries, and raspberry preserves; small batches of each but it gives me a variety. Tomorrow I'm going to make more of the same until the berries are used up. Tomorrow I also think I'll be able to switch out the cherries that are in the dryer for a batch of raspberries. I leaned up against the Plexiglas on the dryer today and burnt my arm; I couldn't believe how hot it was. Guess these hot days are just what I need to get the drying down from three days to two. I could actually use a couple of more trays but I'm not going to complain, especially with how tired Rand is.

Rand is asleep again. I made hamburger helper with beef TVP and he almost went to sleep in his plate. I made raspberry corn muffins for dessert but he was so tired he fell asleep on the sofa in the middle of a sentence again so I put them in a tin and we'll have them for breakfast with some raspberry and granola cereal.

The way we eat granola I'm going to need to make more before too much longer. I saw an easy recipe but it'll have to wait for a less busy day. And that won't be any time soon because I just realized that the red plum trees are going to be ripe in a couple of days.

I put away more of the stuff and I've managed to whittle the pile down by about half. It makes me cranky to see everything just lying all over the place like that but I now understand why Momma used to stand around shaking her head going, "There are only so many hours in the day."

One thing I wished I had remembered to tell Rand was that I could swear that it felt like someone was watching me a couple of times today. It was probably my imagination after getting so used to him being around all the time. Or maybe Mr. Henderson had someone watch our place. It's not important enough to wake him up over. But we've got to do something about his snoring I can hear him from all the way down the stair case.


	34. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

 **July 4** **th** – For a long time I thought my life was perfect – Mom, Dad, little brother and all things good, at least as a kid would see it. Then I thought my life was over and all bad – lost my idyllic family, pains and scars and emotional battles. Then it managed to get even worse than I could have imagined when the pandemic went from manageable to horrific. But I struggled through all of that and survived and slowly my life has gotten … better. I still can't say it is perfect but I don't know if anyone but little kids ever really experience that. As you grow up you see things and begin to be aware of things. But my life has definitely been getting better … lots better … and in ways that I never expected. But yesterday, just one word out of turn, and I could have lost that. It could have totally been gone and regardless of Momma O's words about His will and His timing, people still are in control of their own choices and the consequences of those choices and what He wants for us may not be what we get because of our own actions or omissions.

Rand left really early in the morning to go straight over and meet his family. He didn't even sit down for breakfast so I gave him the muffins to eat when he got a chance and I munched on dried granola and fresh fruit. The only thing that Rand asked me to do was stay around the house and that he would be back but not too late because they had done all of the prep work for dismantling things already.

My morning was full. The red plums were in and I was happy to have them. I was a canning fool and was really happy for some reason. I don't know why. There was no real reason for it. I just felt good and everything seemed to be going good; really, really good. A guy, a girl, a horse, two mules, chickens and a cat and a home for all of them to share … it just felt good. I know I keep saying that but, when it has been so long since a person has felt that way, good is the same thing as great, wonderful, awesome … but more deep and grounded, like when the preacher used to say "God is good" and the congregation would say back "Good all the time." It had been a while since I thought about that. A lot of the time it was just something I mouthed because all the grownups around me were saying it. But yesterday morning was different, I understood what they meant.

I was even hungry at lunch so I fried up a little bannock bread and dipped it in the half boiled syrup that I was making from the left over cherries, raspberries, and plums before I went inside and started reorganizing the remaining mess in the house. I had planned to give it my best shot to get it finished that night.

After I was finished eating I realized I needed three more jars before I could seal the syrup so I put a lid on the pot and pulled it off to the side so that it would stay hot but not turn into candy or burn. I turned around and ..

"Hi Kiri."

"Chase! You scared me to death. What are you doing here? Is Rand back?"

"No. I … I came by to apologize … for the other day."

I had been in a totally different zone and it took me a while to figure out what he was talking about. I didn't really know Chase and just didn't think about him that much. He'd been an annoying pain and honestly Rand took up most of my thoughts when it came to people of the male persuasion.

"Don't worry about it Chase. You didn't have to come all the way out here for that."

"Well, I didn't … not just for that. I wanted to warn you."

I didn't like the sparkle in his eyes. It didn't match the expression on his face. "Warn me?"

"Yeah. About Rand."

"Chase, I think you need to go."

He kept on just like I hadn't spoken and that made me itchy. I knew something was going on. "See Rand isn't the good boy that he tries to make himself out to be. I could tell you some stories, oh yes I could. I could tell you some things about him and Julia both. Going to church on Sundays and every other day making it like …"

"That's enough Chase. I want you to go. Now."

"They always thought they were so good. Hypocrites, that's all they were. And then Rand acted like he really did 'get religion' and started changing. No more drag racing 'cause someone could get hurt and it was 'wrong.' No more going to the quarry for the parties because there was liquor and drugs and other stuff. But I knew deep down he and Julia both were still just the same as the rest of us. They couldn't fool me."

Every time I tried to edge away from him he would cut me off so I stood still and waited to see what he was after.

"And then he even got to be too good for Julia. Went off to Gainesville with that big scholarship like he was going to be somebody. Turned his back on the rest of us that'd been his friends. Broke Julia's heart. And I knew, I knew that it wouldn't take much to console her and I was the man for the job. And I did, and she liked it. But every time Rand came home she'd run to him and she'd be little Miss Goody Two-Shoes again."

Once we'd gotten away from the fire I realized what I smelled wasn't the fruit. Chase had been drinking and from the look of his eyes a bottle wasn't the only thing he'd been sucking on. I knew those eyes and if he didn't have a pipe of something close by I hadn't spent the last few years of my life in a foster home with troubled teens.

"And then she finally saw him for what he was. A loser with nothing, not special, not anything. But instead of coming to me like she was supposed to she went with that freak Harbinger. Rand has totally ruined her."

"Chase, you aren't making any sense. You keep contradicting yourself. And what Julia chose to do is her responsibility, don't try and make it different by blaming someone else. You got a problem with her you go tell her, not me. But for now why don't you go on home and sleep it off. Better yet, find Mitch, talk to him."

"My holier than thou brother? The one who didn't give me any backup and let Rand throw me in with that … with that … No, I apologized for what I said but it is more important that I'm here to warn you. See Rand will get to you too. He'll break your heart. But I can save you. I will save you." And suddenly I was in a lot of very bad trouble because I was staring down the barrel of a really big gun. "You're coming with me. Now."

"I'm not going anywhere with you Chase Peters. You're drunk and you're high and you need to go someplace and sleep it off so you can find your brain."

"You either come with me or I'll tell Rand you aren't the little innocent you play at being. And I'll be convincing, just as convincing as I was every time he called begging me to tell him whether Julia was cheating on him or not. He believed me then. He'll believe me now. Better yet … better yet … why don't we just take care of that 'innocent' problem right now? Rand won't want you any more after that and you'll have to let me save you."

Chase had completely lost his mind if he thought that I was going to simply give in to his lunatic demands. I might not always get what people are talking about the first time around but I'm not stupid either. I also knew that I wouldn't have too many chances to get this right.

It was a fight but something told me that Chase had fought with girls before because he seemed to know all the dirty tricks that usually worked. I wasn't going to give in, I just wasn't … but Chase was a lot bigger and stronger than me and I knew without a doubt that unless I was lucky eventually I was going down. Going down though isn't giving in.

"Turn her loose Chase!"

And then I was pinned up against him and I could feel the barrel of his gun jabbing me in the ribs.

"She isn't worth it Rand. You never would have known if you hadn't come back early would you? Man she's a freak, the things she does," and he said it with a dirty little laugh that left no one doubting what he meant.

I hadn't been scared until then. It never occurred to me that Chase would actually follow through on his threat to tell Rand that … that I was that type of girl. And I could see something dark and nasty on Rand's face. It felt like I was losing everything.

"Boy, turn her loose." That was Mr. Henderson.

"Chase, what would your mother say?" That was Pastor Ken.

"Chase, my God … have you lost your mind?!" That was Mitch and you could see the pain written across his face as clearly as the anger on Rand's.

Chase was getting agitated. He was very into his fantasy of the moment. He kept saying all these things to egg Rand on but also trying to blame me for what was happening. But no amount of pleading or ordering by the men he faced made him do anything but hold on tighter to whatever crazy he had going on.

The standoff was coming to an end, I knew it. I could feel it. Mr. Henderson did too. And Mitch was reaching for his gun but stopped when Chase shoved the gun even harder into me, nearly making me holler. Rand looked like he just wanted to barrel in and rip Chase apart but no one dared do anything.

Then I looked to my left and we were right by the fire again. And the pot was right there. And I knew, this was my last chance. Mitch was still pleading with his brother but stopped, confused when I said, "I'm sorry Mitch."

It confused Chase and everyone else too. That gave me the one second advantage. And God is good … good all the time. I twisted left, grabbed the handle of the pot. The lid went askew as I jerked it up and flung it straight at Chase's face. He could have used me as a shield. As it was my aim was off and the near boiling syrup caught him on the lower half of his face, the arm he'd thrown up to protect himself, and ran down the front of his shirt. He was screaming as soon as the first drop touched his skin. I got a few splatters on me too but it wasn't the splatters that have me laid up.

I'd swung myself free when he brought his arm up but the gun still went off. I didn't feel anything at first. Don't feel much now given the pills that Pastor Ken made me take. What's another scar? All I can say is thank goodness for metal underwires. Apparently that is what deflected the bullet and I only have a small furrow and a huge bruise under my arm where the bottom of my bra normally sits. That and the fact that Chase was using a reload that didn't fire with the full force it was supposed to, the only reload in the whole gun. God is good.

They had to haul Chase off to the clinic. I could have gone but Pastor Ken recommended against it as some stomach bug was running rampant and the clinic was a major point of infection it seemed no matter how many times they disinfected everything.

The pastor patched me up before he would leave. I wanted Rand there but I didn't know how to ask so I sat and tried not to think about the scars I already had while the pastor tended to what would become my newest one. Only Mitch seemed to be anxious to get his brother some help … but even he said he wasn't leaving until he made sure I was going to be OK.

After everyone left Rand took care of the animals and brought in my canning stuff. I was pretty groggy and lying on the sofa. Every time I thought I had found a thought to think it would slip away from me. Every few minutes I felt Rand touch me and I'd try and open my eyes but they didn't want to work. Rand didn't say much and I didn't seem to be able to put sounds together, every time I tried my mouth would forget what I was supposed to be saying.

Eventually I could keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time and Rand came in and locked everything down. When he looked at me … I knew what was wrong, or thought I did. And suddenly I wanted to cry so bad but couldn't abide the idea that he would see me cry yet again. I got up and moved to go to the bathroom but the room tilted and I wound up walking into the wall and not the hall like I had meant to. I hit where I hurt and I nearly upchucked right there.

"Kiri! Geez. Here let me … Kiri? Come on … come on … that's right. Let me … there were go. Now where were you headed? "

"I don't know."

"You don't know? OK … how about we go wash your face? Hmmm?"

Rand carried me and then set me on the edge of the tub in the bathroom and took a washcloth and washed my face and hands and then bent to take my shoes off. "What are you doing?"

"Kiri, the stuff Pastor Ken gave you is pretty strong. You aren't feeling too much, thank You God, and I don't think you're going to be doing much tonight. Why don't we get you comfortable and we'll go upstairs and …"

"You … you … you still want to stay … with me I mean?"

"Boy are you flying. Let's get you situated and upstairs so you can lay down and sleep."

"No, I mean yes, I mean … Rand … "

"Hey, look at me … Kiri?"

"Please don't … please don't … "

"Kiri, I promise I won't … push you … but you are going to need some help getting undressed and upstairs."

"Rand … please don't …"

"Kiri, it's OK I …"

"Listen to me! Please don't … don't think I'm like her."

All the sound went out of the universe.

"Is that what you've been … Kiri, look at me. I've known Chase Peters since we were in middle school. He used to be my best friend and I know exactly how big a liar he can be. Even if I didn't know that the fact that you were fighting him tooth and nail would have clued me in. And even if I didn't know either one of those two things … Kiri, are you hearing me? …Look at me sweetheart. Even if I didn't know those two things, I know you. You may be a lot of things but a flirt and a … hmmm … loose … isn't one of them."

I don't remember but Rand said that tears were running down my face and all I seemed to do was want to lay my head down on his shoulder. I guess Rand did "help me get comfortable" and got me upstairs though I don't remember more than bits and pieces.

This morning I only woke up when I did because nature doesn't wait. They don't talk about that in any of those romance books, how real that "real life" can be. I made it downstairs and to the bathroom pulling the sweaty t-shirt away from myself. I knew for it to already be that hot it had to be way passed breakfast. I was trying to decide what I could wear that wouldn't make me want to scream when I heard the front door open. I didn't hear him go up the stairs but I sure heard him come down, sounded like a herd of elephants.

"Kiri?!"

I mean to say "in here" but all I could manage was a croak. "Whew. I didn't expect you to be awake yet. You feeling OK?"

I told him probably like he did after Laurabeth's wedding. "That good huh?"

I smiled but all I wanted to do was lean against him and make sure he was there and was really staying.

"We're taking a day off. Or at least a day off from work. Besides, I have presents."

I didn't have the foggiest idea what he was talking about. But before he would tell me he wanted me to take the other pill that Pastor Ken had left. After an argument that neither one of us was going to win we compromised and I took half the pill. My head still felt like it was barely attached but the room didn't move around without my permission.

I wanted to clean up but Rand wanted me to come into the other room and sit first. I looked at the pile of stuff and realized it looked like it had grown again somehow. "Wha … ?"

"I told you … presents. Missy came with Uncle George and them yesterday and she took Mick and Tommy and went back over a couple of those trailers we passed by. She actually found one or two things in most of them except for one where she found a bunch of clothes and kid's stuff. She took everything to divide up with the families over by them but she sent this stuff to you because she said it looked your size. And yeah, I know you are trying to be polite about other people picking out clothes for you but surely you can wear shorts and these things Missy called sundresses when it's just me. And … I um … thought you might feel too uncomfortable and the dresses are the kind that …"

So I ended up wearing a sundress with a stretchy top part rather than the full armor that I normally wear. When I came out of the bedroom Rand wolf whistled and I didn't know whether to be embarrassed or throw something at him.

He … it's hard to explain. For a couple of hours I was pretty out of it again. We went back up to the dormer room but we opened the windows and shutters all the way. Rand had found a very small fan that he plugged into some gizmo that he had wired into the solar panel thingies. He explained it to me but my brain was pretty toasted. All I know is that it worked and that little ten inch fan kept us cooler than we would have been otherwise. I'd kinda dozed and then find he'd done something else. There was a new pillow on my bed. A picture I'd never seen before suddenly appeared on the wall over Rand's mattress. A small glass with some wildflowers in it was on a small table that I had been using as a nightstand.

Gradually the pain pill wore off and I sat up. The clock showed that it was lunch time but no Rand was in sight. I rolled offf the bed and decided I wouldn't say no to a couple of ibuprofens and started down the stairs. I heard him in the summer kitchen and when I went in there he said, "I told you I could cook if I had to."

It was fried rice and he had a bowl of fruit. "Come on, we'll go back upstairs. It's a few hours yet before the animals need any attention."

He wouldn't let me carry anything so it took him two trips. We had a picnic lunch and then … we'll we cuddled. Not to do anything just to be close.

"Kiri, I know Pastor Ken said … look … did Chase … hurt you or …."

"No. He clocked me once but he's a woos and I barely felt it."

"I swear girl, you are going to kill me. You know what I mean. Did he .. "

"No Rand. I didn't like him touching me but he didn't do any more than that and mostly that happened because we were fighting."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there and … "

"Rand, don't you dare make this to be any of your fault. I don't know what Chase's problem is but … Rand … how … how mad is Mitch at me? And I didn't even know there was anyone else until Pastor Ken mentioned their mother."

"His mother. Mitch and Chase have the same dad, different moms. Mitch lived with their dad and Chase lives with his mom and the kids from her second marriage after the divorce. She lives way on the other side of Hwy129. Her parents had money and built her this nice house. They're friends with the same crowd the Harbinger family is, what's left of 'em anyway."

"But what about Mitch?"

"Mitch will deal with it. Don't worry about it. Chase has had problems before. He'll clean up and then fall off the wagon. Before his grandparents would always pay to have him to go to rehab … don't know what they'll do this time."

"Rand, I need to know the truth … did you ever … I mean … did you believe any of the things he said?"

"No. Kiri, look at me, I mean it … no. Not even for a second. I was just so … furious … at Chase … at myself for leaving you here alone to deal with him when I know how dangerous it is … I'm still not feeling real good about what happened and if you need to talk about it we will but Kiri … I can't promise I won't get upset. I'm trying real hard right now because Pastor Ken said this plus everything else … that you need some peace and quiet. But it does hurt Kiri and … I'm not sure what to do with those feelings right now. Julia would flirt and it never bothered me near as much as seeing Chase touching you even though I know you weren't asking to be touched. I'm just … "

And I could feel him getting upset so I just scooted closer to him and whispered stuff to him that I'm not going to repeat here about how he was the only one that I ever wanted to touch me. That seemed to settle him down some.

After a bit somehow or other we started talking about what needed doing and why as far as the projects around the place went … our place. He wants to get the lanai fixed first but the next project after that needs to be a corral for our mounts. And after that he wants to build a smokehouse. Both projects will require getting some materials from the salvage houses and he'll need my help. That makes me feel better, knowing that we will work on things together. I told him I needed to get to work on turning a garden. He said Lou could probably be trained to plow … assuming we had a plow. He said let him think on it and we'd do what we could do until something better came along.

Then we worked our way back around to how people were changing and how our lives were changing. Was it because of what was going on? Or were the changes not changes but parts of the people that were there to begin with and simply revealed by the current circumstances. Rand talked a little bit about Julia and I finally … well I finally told him about finding Uncle Charlie's remains when I first got here. I told him part of me wanted to know why he would have just left me to rot in Tampa while he came up here and part of me didn't. He admitted that he'd been blind to the changes going on in Julia's life but he also said that he could never have imagined her ever turning to a guy like Freddie Harbinger.

He's still sensitive to the whole situation. When I tried to ask him what he had heard as far as what was going to happen to her … not gloating, just wanting to know … he said that he'd been trying not to find out. Uncle George tried to get him to talk about it a couple of times but he said he wasn't going there any time soon. She made her choices and he didn't want to get drawn into the drama again. He said he wants people to know he is through with her and that he and I are together and that nothing is going to change that. We were both ready to just let everybody talk and not worry about it. Or at least that is what we said. I have a feeling it is going to matter, especially to Rand because some of the people are the ones he cares about enough to care about what they think of him. And I'll care because Rand will care.

It was embarrassing but Rand cleaned and redressed my ouch. The ibuprofen wore off real quick and Rand didn't have to work too hard to get me to take the other half of the pill I had turned down earlier.

We talked for a while longer but I dozed off again. When I woke up he was coming in from putting the animals up for the night. He had a list and a mission and was going through Daddy's files with a vengeance and I finally felt coherent enough to write everything in this journal.

Some fourth of July … but one without any fireworks or explosions was nice under the circumstances. Except maybe I spoke too soon. We've just heard the next promised convoy rattling along US90. I hope everyone has the sense to stay away this time.

 **July 5** **th** – I was very sore when I woke up this morning. Too sore for anything but the sundress but then I nearly died of embarrassment when Brendon showed up with Major Sawyer, Alicia and Missy in tow. Laurabeth and Jonathon had stayed home to help make some decisions on the new additions. Brendon was picking up the last few odds and ends and Major Sawyer (he asked me to call him Bill but that's going take me a while) was riding shotgun.

I tried to go in and change but the most I could manage was to put a pair of jeans on under the sundress. I couldn't stand to have anything pressed against my ouch. Alicia was the one that told me I was being silly, that it was just "us girls" since the guys wouldn't be staying. I gave in but left the jeans on and excused that by saying I didn't want to drop any hot fruit on bare skin.

Where I had gotten a few splatters of the fruit syrup had blistered and itched like crazy. I tried really hard not to think of Chase but I couldn't seem to help myself.

Alicia and Missy stayed and helped me can and change out the dehydrator trays while Brendon and … Bill … went to pick up the last bit of stuff that hadn't fit in their wagon yesterday. I hadn't known that they'd been working yesterday. Rand didn't go with them today either. I asked him about it later and he said they were family but they didn't live in each other's pockets all the time. They knew he wanted and needed to stay home with me. I also tried to find out about Chase but everyone would change the subject when I did so I have a feeling it is bad and maybe I'll give it a few more days; I'm thinking maybe I don't want to know after all.

We fixed rice and beans for lunch by boiling them rather than soaking them before setting them to cook in the Dutch oven. Brendon and Bill were back for that and I wasn't comfortable sitting anywhere except beside and behind Rand. I think they thought it was because of what happened with Chase. The truth is I just felt exposed. Other girls might not have problems wearing loose and breezy sundresses but it was a new experience for me and one I'm not sure I'll repeat in company. I like my armor thank you very much.

After lunch I was just too tired to do any more canning. Rand was working on the lanai and I asked him if he wanted any help. He turned me down saying what he was doing was a one person job and why didn't I go lay down for a little bit. I honestly thought about it and that's when I realized maybe I was more hurt than I had thought. If there are any lessons to be learned in all of this, I'm learning I'm not an island and that there are some things and some times that I need to accept help … and to do it willingly and graciously. I'm still working on the willingly and graciously part.

I didn't go lay down though. I went to the summer kitchen to start putting away the cooled jars of stuff from the last couple of days. Missy wouldn't take anything that was made today. Apparently what Bill brought with him included some regular groceries besides the bulk staple goods. In fact they left some of that with us but told me to keep it to ourselves and not use it for trade. Flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt are already impossible to find and people are down to little or nothing. Pastor Ken said people are killing their livestock and eating acorns and stuff like that to get by until their garden starts coming in.

After I finished putting the jars in the pantry I took a good look at it. To me it was beautiful but it wasn't even a quarter full. What had looked like a lot at the little house didn't look like nearly as much once it was sitting on the shelves my Daddy built. And I'm sore as all get out from tugging and pulling at my muscles while dumping the dry bulk staples into the big gallon jars that were found. Using the Tupperware would have been easier I guess but I'm afraid that mice or rats would get into things. I'll use the Tupperware for temporary storage or for stuff that isn't food. I'll just need to remember to label it the right way. I'd hate to mistake soap powder for sugar.

After I put the jars away I got this journal and sat down for a while. I doubt I'll feel much like writing tonight. Every minute that passes my muscles stiffen up even more.

 **July 6** **th** – No company today. Good thing, I wasn't in the mood for any. I'm tired and so is Rand. How did pioneer men and women do all of this work?! Corral is three quarters finished and made out of these metal panels Rand found at the old place. Rand said he'll make a more permanent one when he finds one that he can dismantle and put back together. I asked him why he couldn't use barbed wire and he said because Hatchet, Bud, and Lou would get all cut up when they lean over it. That's good enough for me.

 **July 7** **th** – Rand finished the corral today and the animals are getting used to it. They like being off their pickets that's for sure. Hatchet kicked it once and won't go near the walls now except when it is time to go into the barn at night. I think the noise scared him.

Rand started on the smokehouse but just barely. Took him a while to find a refrigerator that could be used and drag it back to the house. It was the first time he'd left me at home by myself and I'll admit I was jumpy the whole time. I'm glad Mr. Henderson didn't come by until after Rand got back. No Mitch today, Hoss and Bradley were with him. I saw Rand get angry for a minute when the men were talking to him but Hoss said something that calmed him right back down. I've been waiting and waiting for him to tell me what it was but he hasn't. I'll give him until tonight and then I'll ask tomorrow.

I used up the last of the cherries and sent a bucket home with Mr. Henderson since he was heading that way. I asked Rand how Mr. Henderson ever got any work done with all the running around he does. Rand looked at me then laughed and said, "Honey, Mr. Henderson has over fifty people that work for him. You've only met a couple. And he has two foremen – one for the animals and one for everything else and both of them cousins of some type – that handle things while he's out making deals and taking care of organizing the security patrols and such."

I had no idea that Mr. Henderson was such a big deal in that way. I mean I knew he was a big deal for us but not a big deal throughout the community even before things went crazy. Apparently he owns a lot of acreage outright but is also using some fallow land and abandoned hay fields to keep his operation running and his people and their families fed. My little bucket of cherries didn't seem like so much after that but Rand told me not to think like that because I might be surprised.

Tomorrow Rand said we'd also try turning the garden area too. That should be interesting. Hope to goodness I can actually do it with as sore as I still am. Rand said he expected me to be more healed up by now. Pastor Ken, who came by in time to share an early dinner with us (I guess that extra biscuit was meant to happen for a reason), said that it's probably from me being wore out more than usual. He is seeing it a lot at the clinic and out in the community. People not getting the food they are used to, not getting the rest they are used to, the stress, the lack of medicine. He said he knew he didn't have to worry about clean water here but a lot of people had to use stale water out of whatever containers they could catch rain in, or they're boiling river and pond water. Lots of people getting sick from that too.

I wanted to ask about Chase but every time I tried to steer the conversation in that direction the men would change the subject. Something is up and I have a feeling I'm not going to like it. There's going to be a fellowship this Sunday, if I can't get my answers before then hopefully I'll be able to hear some gossip or just flat out ask Momma O, I know she'll tell me.


	35. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

 **July 9** **th** – Didn't have a chance to write yesterday. I was just exhausted. I wasn't just right about how much work trying to turn a garden without a rototiller or plow was going to be I had way underestimated it. I thought Rand was going to laugh at me or tell me I was being stupid for keeping at it but he knows what the garden is going to mean. It could be the difference between tightening our belts up one notch and tightening them up three, four or more.

So we worked, and even with leather gloves we both got blisters. And we both got exhausted. And I forgot to ask Rand what he'd been talking about with Mr. Henderson … I should have. It wouldn't have made things any better this morning but at least I would have had more time to prepare for it.

I was actually interested in going to the fellowship but Rand seemed … determined. That's how it seemed anyway. I just put it down to wanting to do the right thing and go to church even though we were both sore. He asked me to wear the jean skirt I made again – I guess he likes it – so I did but I wore it with a blouse-y jewel-colored shirt that was in the pile that Missy had sent to me. It wasn't very practical but it was a heck of a lot better than pink, especially since the pink one wasn't really fit for much anymore. It had been torn in several places that pulled it all out of whack when I sewed it back together.

We rode Hatchet again; and I had a bucket of fruit in my lap just like last time. There was also a pile of biscuits in a bag hung over the saddle horn. Rand tries to ride Hatchet more than Bud or Lou because one, he gets his feelings hurt if he is ignored and two, he gets frisky if he isn't ridden regular. The mules have more sense. Rand was holding me even tighter than he needed to and I began to suspect something was really bothering him. I knew so when he started talking as we turned onto CR49.

"Kiri … "

"Just spit it out. Are you worried about me being out in public and causing a scene or something? I promise I'll try real hard not to embar … "

"It's not that at all. Don't think that. Don't ever think that. I probably should have said something before now. Kiri honey … Chase Peters died."

I don't know what I had been expecting but it hadn't been that.

"It's not your fault. You were defending yourself. He was twice your size and he had a gun and from what's been found out since, you aren't the first girl he's … I don't even know what you want to call it. Gotten obsessed with or tried to intimidate or stalked or … "

"I'm sorry Rand. I … I didn't mean to. I knew he'd get burned but … but I didn't … "

"Not … your … fault. And I don't want to hear you apologizing for it again. No matter what Kiri."

"What do you mean no matter what?"

"Chase's mom … she's … people have been talking. Chase didn't die right away. Pastor Ken knew it was bound to happen, that's why he didn't rush him to the clinic. Shock, infection … he said it was inevitable. He would have been triaged anyway. They don't have the medical facilities to take care of that kind of injury anymore. But he didn't die quick. And his mother, who works at the clinic, only heard the details she wanted to hear and she's refused to listen to anyone with sense."

"How … how bad is this? Is she … can she … what happens … will I … is there still jail?"

"No! You're not going anywhere. I dare anyone to try and take you from me. And if there was still a way to prosecute people we probably wouldn't be going through this in the first place because someone would have complained about Chase before it got this far. Like I said, some things have come out. But … "

"But what?"

"His mom has been talking. And been talking to people who have done their own talking. And … Pastor Ken says that he is going to try and do what he can but he has to be careful. He can't use the pulpit to … to try and … "

"Maybe he shouldn't say anything at all. I don't want him to get in trouble."

"He won't. Mr. Henderson has … well, he's got a lot of pull and he's given people a lot to think about too."

"Has it been hard on your family?"

"Why would you ask that?"

"You said that Chase's mom was friends with the Harbingers. Julia's parents are friends with the Harbingers. And the situation with Julia and all … "

"Ha! Julia's mother has been … well, from what I heard Mr. Winston laid down the law so to speak. He isn't too happy that his wife knew about Julia and even aided and abetted her in some ways. Plus, they don't dare say too much because of Julia. They don't want her to be the center of attention any more than she is going to be eventually when everything comes out. They don't even plan to be at the fellowship from what I understand. As far as the Harbingers go … what I hear is Ron Harbinger has had some kind of epiphany and hardly anyone recognizes the man. With Fred and Rick both gone that only leaves Old Jared … and he's … off. No one is quite sure what has happened but the Pastor thinks it might have been a mini-stroke or series of them. He's got the symptoms, or so they say. I don't think we'll see any of them at the fellowship to be honest. I just want you to stay close."

It was a lot to digest in a short period of time. The fellowship was being held at Hale Park and Community Center on Duval Street which meant we had to go back through downtown. We saw the horrible fire damage for the first time. It depressed me; it tore Rand all to pieces. We were both very quiet when we got to the park. He got down, took the bucket from me and had me half off the saddle when someone bumped into him. It hurt to get joggled like that because today was the first day I'd gone back to wearing my armor. It took my breath away but I couldn't let Rand see or he would have taken off after the guy who had barely said "excuse me" in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

As clueless as I can be about people I knew that it might have been better if I had stayed at home. It was highschool all over again. They were targeting Rand – I guess as punishment or something – rather than me and I was getting angry. "I should have just stayed home."

"No. You have as much right to be here as …"

"Rand, rights don't have anything to do with it. There's going to be trouble if they don't stop picking on you because of me. I'm gonna lose it and just make everything worse."

"No you're not. "

"Oh yes I am. The next jerk that acts like a snot is going to get kicked in the … "

"Girl, you something else."

Mr. Henderson was laughing. I hadn't a clue how he could be laughing at a time like this. He slapped Rand on the back and asked me – louder than I thought was strictly necessary – how I was feeling and said it must have been God looking out for me that kept that bullet that that crazy Chase Peters had tried to kill me with from doing any more damage than it did. Not that I didn't agree with him, but suddenly everybody and their sweetheart was looking our way.

"Fine Mr. Henderson, thank you."

"You holding anything against his family?"

"Huh?"

"You holding anything against Chase Peters' family? I've got Mitch working for me and I like to keep on top of these things."

"Of course not. Why would I?"

"Well … he hurt you pretty bad. You were fighting him off but … well … if we hadn't come along no telling what would have happened."

I felt like running away and hiding. It's bad enough to talk about that sort of stuff in private with Rand but to have it being discussed with megaphones in public was near my worst nightmare.

"No! I don't hold anything against Chase's family. He was drunk and he was high. He made a choice to be that way and it had messed him up in the head. Why would I blame his family for something that Chase chose to do? Mr. Henderson I really don't want to talk about this … please … "

I looked at Rand but he was growling at some people that were getting a little too close in their listening.

"Well, then I guess we won't … but Mitch is bad upset and worried that you think he's like that brother of his. If you could see your way to maybe … "

"I'd never blame Mitch for … "

"Thank you. I was wondering if you might, considering I was the one that introduced Chase and vouched for him," Mitch said in a quiet voice coming up behind us.

"Don't even think it. Chase made his own choices. I heard he had … problems. I'm not happy with what I had to do. It didn't end well for either of us but I've thought and thought about it and I don't know what else I could have done. Chase wasn't listening to you … any of you … and I could feel his finger tightening … " I had to take a big swallow and turned to Rand 'cause I had started to shake. "None of us are happy about it Mitch. It happened. Drugs and drinking … His mom must be having an awful hard time of it. Rand can we take this stuff to Momma O. I see her over at the tables."

I'd had about all I could take and Rand was happy to let me escape. Momma O wasn't much better though. Had to rehash the whole story all over again in just about the same tones and words as Mr. Henderson only this time in front of a bunch of women. I was shaking so bad by the time the service started that Rand actually asked if I wanted to go home. But Missy who had arrived by then said, "She may want to but she won't. These people need to see her and get to know her. That can't happen if she is forever running away."

Missy was right but I didn't like it. And I didn't like her little jab at the fact that I had left from her dad's house to escape the pressure I'd felt there either but I didn't say anything. It took me a while to pay attention to what Pastor Ken was saying. He was going on about how there was a significant problem within the community with drinking and drugs as a means of dealing with depression, anxiety, and other stuff. He said folks were allowing themselves to go down a dark path that changed them and had them doing things that they wouldn't do if they hadn't been under the influence. He urged folks to find strength and support in the Good Book and in fellowship and not in the fleeting courage that the other stuff provides. He spoke of other things that were making inroads into the community, including complacency and apathy. I haven't got it all down, I had a hard time hearing every time someone close by would start whispering, but those were the highlights.

I stuck close to Rand the whole time and throughout the fellowship that came after the service. A few people seemed to go out of their way to come up and say hello but it would be a fairytale to say that the support of a few important community members suddenly made things all better. Most people decided to just wait and see which story they'd heard was the truer one but there were still a couple of people that were really hostile. Luckily they kept their distance for a time, most of them anyway.

I was helping to clean up … Rand was off with the men but Missy was close by … when Momma O (I think she is a little hard of hearing) wanted to know who taught me to make biscuits. "I don't know. I think it was Momma but it could have been my Memaw or my Granny … I was real little. All of us girls got to play kitchen when we were little. Memaw even had a little fruit juice can biscuit cutter that was all ours to use."

"Well, if that don't beat all. DeLois … you hear that?"

"Yes Momma. I think the whole county heard you."

"Don't get smart with me. You just mad because Paulie said the biscuits reminded him of mine."

Ms. DeLois just rolled her eyes and patted me on the shoulder and said, "Watch out. She's full of vinegar this afternoon. Her arthritis is acting up."

Momma O looked like she was going to swat her daughter with her fan but just humph'd instead and leaned on her cane a little heavier than I'd seen her do before.

"Girl, I been getting those buckets of fruit you been sending. I'll have your seeds directly."

"Yes, ma'am. I know. You said you would."

"Just like that."

"Ma'am?"

"Just like that. You send them buckets and you believe I'll give you some seeds."

"Well, yes ma'am. You said you would."

"Well a day … and so I shall child, so I shall. Help me up and let's get these plates over to the dishpans. The sooner we get things cleaned up the sooner we can get on home. I feel rain comin'."

There wasn't a cloud in the sky but as soon as Momma O said rain was coming everyone started to clean up and load up to head home. I was looking around for Missy to see if there was anything else we needed to do when I spotted a knot of men way on the other side of the playground. There was a fight and I knew just as sure as I stood there who was in the middle of it.

I went walking over there just as fast as my skirt would let me and banging guys out of my way with my bucket. I finally got to the center where there was a regular brawl going on between Rand and one of the guys that had tripped him while we were walking. I was just in time to see the guy who had banged into Rand while he was helping me down off of Hatchet step up and try and pull a dirty trick.

"WHAM!" Plastic bucket hit him square in the face and his nose started bleeding. But I wasn't done. I was so mad I kept swinging at him but kept missing.

"Stop moving when I'm trying to hit you doggone it!"

That made a couple of the guys standing around start to laugh, including Paulie, Momma O's grandson. I asked him, "What are you looking at?!"

"A little spitfire that's gonna be the end of Joiner's pretty hair that all the girls liked so much."

"I don't know what in the world hair has got to do with this but real women don't like men that do more primping than they do. And besides, I don't think Rand is the type to be vain. Why are you laughing now?!"

I suddenly realized Rand and the guy weren't fighting anymore but were both on the ground and looking up at me. They were a mess. Rand was smiling though and the other guy looks like he can't believe something then looks over at Rand and asks, "Is she crazy?"

And he says, "Don't know, don't care, whatever it is I like it. Come here darling and help me up and let me introduce you to Jake."

"I'll help you up!" And I did but I felt like shoving him down again when it seemed like the fight had cleared the air and everyone was best buds again.

"I swear Rand Joiner! Every one of y'all suffers from terminal testosterone poisoning!" And I stomped off leaving the guys to laugh even harder. I was in a huff but glad no one was fighting any more. I swear, if I manage to live to be a 116 I'll never understand guys.

I was going over to Hatchet to wait when Missy came over to me before the Crenshaws all left. "I know you don't understand this honey but this is actually a good thing. Guys work things out differently. Rand stood up for himself and stood up for you and the rest of them respected that. The thing is Rand is going to be in a really good mood. A really, really good mood. A good fight always leaves them in the mood for a good tussle. Take advantage of it Sugar and have a little fun."

She laughed and took off and all I could do is lean my head against Hatchet and pray the ground would open up and swallow me. Did everyone think Rand and I were … ?!

Sure enough, Missy was right. Rand was in a very good mood despite another bloody nose and a bruised chin and scraped knuckles. He put me up on the horse and away we went. People were smiling and waving and I tried to nod but all I could think of was what Missy had said. I didn't want to spoil Rand's mood. I can understand now why some girls just give in because they're afraid of messing things up if they don't. But on the other hand … I'm not some girls, I'm me and I did not want to wind up like Julia.

Rand's mood was so good he didn't notice that my smile and hmmm's to answer his questions were about as genuine as a three dollar bill. I really was happy for him. He was talking about how he grew up with those guys but had lost touch with them and now everything hunky dory blah, blah, blah.

Then he noticed that I was being quiet, more quiet than usual. "Hey Babe, did the fight really bother you that much?"

"It's not that. I didn't like it but I've been around enough guys to know y'all are different animals and like to handle things your own ways."

That made him laugh, "OK, then what is it?"

"I just don't like how everyone keeps thinking … and rushing me … and …"

"Thinking what and rushing what?"

"Oh well … Missy said … "

"Uh oh, what'd she say now?"

"Rand, it's not … well … bad or anything. It's just …. I know you'd say people would talk and think what they'd want to think but I didn't think your family would. Missy said something that made me think and I don't know what to say about it."

"Hey, no sacred cows remember? Can't fix it or deal with it if I don't know what it is."

"Well, she basically said that you were going to be feeling good and … frisky … and that it was fun and I should take advantage of it."

He started having a coughing fit and asked, "She said what?!"

"I told you she said … "

"Honey that was rhetorical, I heard what you said. I thought we had this all talked out. You know I'd never push you."

"I know that. I just didn't know how to tell her that. The problem is … well … I understand the feelings I'm just not ready for the responsibility yet. I'm already feeling rushed about so many things and now here people I thought would get it are rushing me about this too."

"Sugar … look we're almost home, let me take care of Hatchet and we can talk …"

"It's OK Rand. I don't want to spoil your mood. I feel like I already have."

"Kiri, you haven't spoiled my mood.

We got back to the house and he helped me off the horse and instead of letting me down all the way gave me a kiss first … a real kiss. I went into the house and changed gratefully back into the sundress. I was a lot more sore than I had thought I would be.

Rand came in and said, "Next time, don't listen to Missy. Don't listen to anyone else but me. Didn't we have an agreement? I like Missy but she's always giving out advice. Just because she does things a certain way or thinks things run certain ways doesn't mean that its … What did she say anyway?"

"She said that when guys have a good fight they um …"

"Um?"

"They get in the mood for a good … tussle."

"A tussle? OH … a … "

"Yeah. And Rand I really …. I mean I know one of these days you're going to get tired of waiting but … I'm just not … I mean part of me wants to … but at the same time … I don't want to be like … "

"Be like?"

"What happens when we, you know, do it? And then some time after that maybe you don't want to you know, be more than my friend anymore? What do I do then Rand? What if something, you know, happens? I don't want to wind up like Julia."

There. I said it.

"Kiri, I think Paul is right. I'm going to be bald before I get too much older. I'm going to sit beside you so don't freak out. I'm going to say this one more time. I'm not leaving. I want you on whatever terms we work out together. Yes, I want to. And sometimes I want to really bad. And yes, last year after a fight I might have … expected … a certain outcome. But it isn't last year. And things have changed … a lot. You are you and not Julia. We don't have to make the same mistakes that Julia and I made together. We can do things our own way."

"That's great Rand but for how long? No. Don't say anything you'll regret later. I just mean … things are just … I'm not ready Rand and even if I was I'm not so sure that … that … This isn't gonna come out right but here goes. I was raised a certain way and even though people thought that I was kind of … weird … having everyone going around thinking that we're, you know, doing it … it is making me feel … like I'm … "

"Kiri, I can't stop people thinking whatever they want to think. Do you want me to leave? Would that help?"

"Rand I can't even stand to think about the day you're gonna leave. I know you have to … that guy stuff and all … but knowing it and wanting it are two different … I just know I can't keep asking you to … Oh Rand, I am so messing this up."

"You've got some kind of complex about that don't you? You are not messing things up. Every time we get around people you get … Is that it Kiri? Are you ashamed of being with me?"

"No! I want to go around doing stupid stuff like singing it to the sky that you like me enough to stay with me."

"Then if you feel that way why is it so hard for you to believe I feel the same way? You said you trust me."

"I do! I told you, I'm just not …"

"Kiri, I haven't said more because I don't want to scare you. I know we've talked about this before but you are young and I understand that. And if you think that it doesn't bother me that people would think that I would jump on you then you're wrong. But … look at me please … but Kiri don't you think I wonder if one of these days you're not going to feel the same way about me as you say you do right now? I've been burnt once. I don't want it to happen again."

I hadn't thought about it like that.

"And here is something else for you to think about. I'm feeling rushed too. But at the same time I feel like I have to hurry. Something just feels … I feel like time is slipping away from me Kiri. Like every minute that passes is a missed opportunity. This fall and winter … it's gonna get bad. Henderson has talked to some of us. He feels like there is a good possibility that people from up north are going to start making their way south. If they don't a lot of them are going to die of starvation or exposure. They're going to land on our doorstep and there is going to be so many of them that we'll be overrun, just like we were when people from the cities started looking for food and fuel. Not everybody thinks like that, some of them even complain that Henderson is trying to scare them for some reason. Even after everything that has happened some people still believe the government is going to step in and fix things. According to Bill they were beginning to have trouble keeping their own troops fed, how are they going to feed thousands, probably millions of people, who are going to be on the move? Think of it, possibly millions of hungry and angry people. It's going to be a disaster."

I couldn't help but shiver. I missed all of that when I was locked away with the other kids in the warehouse but I'd heard the stories from Uncle George and the rest of them. I can't imagine what that must have been like.

"And I want us to be fixed for it Kiri. I want us to be together. When we're together anything seems possible. I want … I want us to build something together, here, and not ever think about it not being the two of us together. From the very beginning it's been … amazing and crazy and … words, man I used to have all the right words. Kiri do you understand what I'm trying to say? Is it too much? Am I asking too much?"

"Do you mean that … that … you won't get tired of being more than my friend?" I was afraid to step outside of the words and phrases we've always used. I was afraid to be wrong.

"I'm saying that I don't want there to ever be anyone else and whatever that takes I'm prepared for it. If that means that we wait on … some stuff … a lot of stuff … I'm prepared to accept it being like that. Are you prepared to let me … feel like I feel? Are you going to get scared and shut me out?"

"I don't mean to shut you out."

"I hope not Kiri. You're going to have to trust me. That's all I can say. When we sleep upstairs in the same room and you don't act all scared … that means something to me. Maybe it's a guy thing. I don't know. But the fact that you trust me to be that close and not hurt you, to wait, it makes me feel … it makes me feel like I never felt with Julia. OK?"

Well, I trusted him enough to have talked about all that stuff still give him a great big hug. He hugged me back but let up a little when he felt me wince from my ouch.

"Now listen, I can't stop people from thinking and talking. They're going to Kiri. That's people being human. If I tried I'd be in fights constantly and I don't want that any more than you do. But I don't want you to stop talking to me about it if it bothers you. Stop worrying it to death. It's our business and most likely things would have been different if we had met before this … but we didn't and it isn't. We have to deal with the way things are right now. You want to talk about embarrassed? I had to explain things to Mick and Tommy while Uncle George, Bill, Brendon, and a few guys from Mr. Henderson's crew looked on. I wasn't ashamed … but it definitely wasn't the easiest I felt talking in public."

"Oh Rand … " I didn't know whether to laugh or be embarrassed in hindsight.

"Mick thinks you're something special you know and wanted to make sure that I was 'treating you right.' And Uncle George was enjoying himself way too much. But … it didn't kill me and the boys seemed satisfied and that's just life Honey. "

Sometimes you just have stop, draw a breath, and say thank You for stuff, you know? But the other stuff he said, about feeling and needing to hurry … that put into words some of what I've been feeling. I didn't know all of it … the stuff that Mr. Henderson had been talking about … but it helped me to understand why I kept feeling the need to get everything lined up. Fill up all the spaces and holes in my life … the physical ones and the emotional ones. And Rand filled … he fills something, some part of me, that I don't have a name for.

 **July 10** **th** – Rand and I have been going back over that feeling of being in a hurry. He worked on the smokehouse near where I was canning and there was enough brain space left that we could talk while we worked.

He's been looking at my big calendar and wanted to know why I'd made it so big so I tried to explain to him that I needed to keep track of things so I didn't get so stressed out and forget to do things or have something come up unexpectedly. It also helped me to remember when things happened so that if I was tracking something I could work forward. He understood after I explained it to him and it was a relief for him not to make fun of me. More than that he asked if we could put some other stuff on the calendar like the projects we wanted to do and how long we figured they would take. I said of course and it made it feel like there was yet another thing that we were doing together.

He talked to me about his worry that this area was going to get overhunted pretty soon, if not in the next couple of months then this winter when people got even hungrier … and that was assuming the hordes from up north didn't run all the game off first. We talked about our options … the vegetable garden, the fruit I was putting up, the chickens if we can keep them fed, the shares that Uncle George had promised Rand on a cow and a pig. "I used to give Uncle George money that would help raise a beef cow and a hog then he'd sell the meat and I'd get a percentage of the profit from that. This year we talked about it and I'm just going to get the meat if I can get a couple of these smokehouses built."

I told him I could pressure can some of the meat if he wanted me to so he asked me what that would take and I explained the process as I remembered it and tonight we've looked at Momma's preserving books and recipes. And Alicia knows how too so if there is a problem I can ask her. Her father had this huge thing against buying food at the grocery store because he was paranoid the government was poisoning the certain types of men with salt peter and other "emasculating" chemicals for population control. Rand said, "I told you her family was weird. From what Brendon has let slip, Alicia's dad was the problem and not her mom … you notice there is a few years between Alicia and Tommy. He had to blame somebody 'cause he was mostly shooting blanks … uh … you know what I mean."

I did but that led me to wonder, and there was no way I was going to ask Rand after the talk we'd had just yesterday, what Missy and Laurabeth were doing … to not get caught I mean. I figured it wasn't like they could go out and take birth control pills … there weren't any pharmacies around anymore and Pastor Ken had mentioned more than once how there was a shortage of everything. And I guess everything means everything.

Getting back to the canning I asked him when Uncle George thought he'd be slaughtering and when I'd need to be prepared to … to do whatever it was I had to do to help. "Maybe sooner than we normally would. Uncle George usually slaughters in October or November when it cools off but he may have to save some feed this year and do it in September or worse maybe in August. I hope not. I've had to slaughter in August and the heat makes everything about a hundred times worse and that's with having refrigeration too. A 250 pound hog will yield about 130 pounds of meat … but that's bone in and freezer ready. If we take the bone out of a lot of it you're probably talking about a hundred to a hundred fifteen pounds. A single hog won't feed us for a year that's for sure."

I just kind of blinked 'cause he was talking about things that I'd never really thought about.

"A market weight beef cow is about twelve hundred pounds. Someone who knows what they are doing – and Uncle George does – will get between 450 and 500 pounds from a decently muscled beef cow. But different breeds will get you different amounts. For instance a Holstein steer with a good processor will only net you between 375 and 400 pounds. A lean and heavily muscled beef breed might net you as much as 625 pounds. Only planning on the 450 to 500 is a good place to start for us to estimate how much we can count on. Uncle George doesn't raise Holsteins. His milk cows are Brown Swiss … the ones that look all gray that he keeps in that back paddock. Did you see it? The beef cattle are a combination of Pineywoods and Brahmans."

I asked him how on earth he knew all of this and he laughed, "FFA, 4H, Uncle George … you live in a place like this you pick it up. And I was seriously considering going into Ag Business, there are – or were – a lot of dairies in the area. To make sure a farm was paying for itself you have to count every penny; where it is going out, where it is coming in. But … I guess that's over with for a while. Now it's how much you can put on your family's table that is going to matter … unless the government gets even screwier and keeps trying to collect taxes. What they are going to collect taxes on though I don't know."

That led us to talk about how I owned the land and house free and clear and I told him the lawyer had set up some kind of secure trust that paid the taxes every year and even if it hadn't been making any interest it would be a lot of years before I have had to worry about how the taxes were gonna get paid. He wanted to know if I knew which bank and the account number and a bunch of other stuff and I said, "Whoa Rand. The lawyer took care of all of that. There's some papers in Daddy's closet but I just … "

Then I got a bit of a lecture … sounded like the same kind of thing Mr. Barnes was always hammering into me when I had to sit and listen to him talk to me every year about what the expenses were and the money that had come in and gone out. I told him Aunt Wilma had been a bear for making sure there were copies of everything here and in Tampa so more than likely all the answers to his questions would be in that file. "Kiri, they should be your questions, not mine. Girl I know you weren't … look, having a lawyer and all of that is fine but you still need to know what is going on or people are going to cheat you or one day they aren't going to be there and you're going to need to figure this stuff out on your own. What happens when all of this stuff starts clearing up? What if someone suddenly lies and tries to take your land from you? Or says you haven't paid the taxes so they're going to auction it off?"

That scared me so I pulled out those papers and I promised myself I'm going to read them a little bit each night. I wouldn't know what to do if someone suddenly came along and tried to take Sparkleberry Ranch from me. This is all I have. Well … the land and Rand but you know what I mean.

 **July 11** **th** – Got so hot today that I got sick. Stupid. Rand told me to give up the canning for the afternoon but I just feel nervous, twitchy and itchy. I canned the last of the raspberries I think. All the rest of it that comes in will get eaten fresh or will get dried. I told Rand again that I love the solar dehydrator he built and I made a big deal about the smoke "house" too. I've noticed he likes to be appreciated out loud.

It's so hot that I have to water my containers three times a day; morning, early afternoon, and late afternoon. Everything is real pretty especially after I started using that Miracle Gro stuff from the second salvage house, you dissolve it in water. I let the water get warmed up outside before I put it on the plants too. Rand said that way the plants won't go into shock from the extra cold water getting dumped on their extra hot roots.

We haven't seen any people. Guess it is too hot for visiting. I honestly don't mind but I think Rand is getting a little lonesome. He's a people person and it would be selfish of me not to notice that. Tomorrow he is going to go check on his family. He'll leave early in the morning to try and beat some of the heat and then will be back late afternoon.

He doesn't like leaving me here at the house by myself but I'm not comfortable leaving things all out and about and it is too hot to keep the animals pinned up in the barn all day. Although there is one of the hens that has taken up residence way back behind a pile of stuff in the corner in one of Daddy's old tool boxes and she won't come out for nothing. I tried to get her out a couple of times and she pecked the heck out of my hand. I told Rand I thought she was sick and he laughed and said that she was just being broody and to leave her alone. I thought chickens had to have nests and stuff to get broody. She must be a little confused by the new surroundings if she thinks she's going to be able to hatch a hammer or a wrench.


	36. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

 **July 12** **th** – Never, ever eat more than one green apple at a time. And just as soon as I don't feel like I'm dying I'm so gonna kill Rand for laughing.

 **July 13** **th** – Rand survived, but just barely and only because he apologized so sweetly and gave me the two real eggs he swiped from the broody chicken. They were small but I fried them up anyway with the bit of bacon he had brought back from Uncle George's place. Rand wouldn't take both of them and said we should share. He also said we'd let the next one go and see if she could hatch them … after we put nesting boxes together. There were some at the place they came from and he wants to get another load of hay too. But that will have to wait until he finishes the repairs to the little wagon.

And the repairs to the little wagon will have to wait until he gets some wood … which is what he did today. The old shed at the third salvage house had thick walls and the wood was still in pretty good shape, straight, and didn't have many knots. He took most of it apart and it's lying piled up for him to work on tomorrow. After he recovers from his wasp stings; we were lucky it wasn't any worse and he had on long sleeves, they were yellow jackets.

I didn't mind him being gone today like I did yesterday. I could still hear him every once in a while banging away with the mallet. I sure heard him when he found the wasps, people probably heard him in the next county.

Yesterday was different, lonesome. I used the time wisely and stayed busy to keep my mind occupied or I could have gotten depressed which was just plain silly; he was only gone for the day. In the morning I canned and after lunch I managed to finally finish finding places for everything in the house. Those tubs are overflowing and I've had to tape a piece of paper to each one to remind myself what is in them; numbering them just didn't work.

In the late afternoon I went out to the orchard and just couldn't resist the little apples on the tree … they only have a couple of days left to ripen and I thought, why not try just one. The one I bit into bit right back but it was so good, so crisp, so fresh … but small. I didn't think, I mean it was just so good. So I ate another … then another. I knew I should stop so I went back inside and started working on hemming some pretty curtains for the dormer room.

The blackout curtains serve a purpose but … they're just so guy-ish. I've never really had the chance to decorate before but when Rand put that other stuff up there it kind of inspired me to add something too. It was while I was sitting at the sewing machine that I started not feeling so hot. By the time Rand got home I was really miserable. I knew what it was … too many little green apples … but Rand didn't have to rub salt in the wound. I couldn't even sleep upstairs; I just slept on the floor outside my parents' bathroom, at least until about three in the morning. Rand came down to check on me, found me on the floor and we slept on top of the covers for what was left of the night. I will never, never, ever eat little green apples again.

 **July 14** **th** – Figs … never had much to do with them and processing them is a learning experience. The fig tree is a big one and is really loaded even after I took off what I did today. Rand said he will run a bucket of them over to Momma O tomorrow so there will be that many fewer I have to worry about spoiling.

Today I made spiced figs, pickled figs, fig preserves, and fig conserve. I also started two trays of dried figs. Tomorrow I'm going to try and make some dried candied figs. First you wash the fruit and cut it into thin strips. Then you simmer it in a medium syrup made from two cups of water and two cups of sugar for two hours, or until the fruit is clear and tender. Next you drain the fruit but I'll saved whatever syrup is left to dump into the next batch. Finally you have to place the fruit on the drying trays. These are supposed to be dried until pliable like leather or soft dried apples. When they come out you have to cool them down before putting them into an air tight container. These ought to be good in fruit cake but I won't tell Rand. It will be a surprise if I can ever get around to it.

I was working on the inventory again and while stuff is going up hand over fist in some categories it is coming down in others. While Rand worked on the wagon I asked him what all grew around here. He said the same vegetables that would grow any place else, we would just need to plant them at different times than they do up north and down south. I told him Momma said there were two planting seasons for almost everything further south and he says a bunch of stuff had two seasons here too, the second one just doesn't have much of a window of opportunity to take advantage of, mostly it is cool weather crops vs. warm weather crops.

I knew about all the fruit in the orchard but they can't really grow citrus fruit up here. They might in a hot house and Rand talked about a tangerine kind of orange called a Satsuma, but he said a bad frost a few years back got all the ones he knew of.

Then I got to asking him about sugar and cornmeal and wheat. That made him jump a little and ask if we are getting low and I said not yet because in addition to the bit I had leftover that had been found, there is the stuff that I had earned, what I got at the last ration book day … hard to believe that was over a month ago … then what Missy and Bill just gave us there is some whole wheat in #10 cans in the cubbyhole that I can grind for bread. He "mmmm'd" that sound you make when you are thinking and then said, "Do you have any clue how long it will last?" I told him probably over a year because of what Momma and Daddy have in those cans but I asked him what were other people likely to be doing.

"Well, forget wheat. I don't think it grows around here though there might be a variety that does. I know they grow some for forage but I don't know about it going to seed heads for people food. We might be able to do some oats … maybe. What I know we can do is grow grain sorghum. It's grown for cows and pigs these days but I know people can eat it. Mr. Henry – Momma O's husband – used to talk about eating it when he was a boy because his family was so poor they had to eat the same thing their animals did. Might be in one of your mother's books or you could ask Momma O about it. Corn is something else you can grow around here but it's got to be the right kind of corn for grinding. You can dry field corn or dent corn – I normally feed it to the animals – but if we could figure out a way to grind it we could get by on that. The old timers did."

I told him I had Momma's hand grinder but that I'd never ground anything myself and Momma had only done it a couple of times that I remember because she was playing with the thing. Daddy gave it to her for her birthday one year.

So, we have options but I need to know how to get seeds for everything. It is nice to trade with Momma O but I can't count on it being like that for everything. Rand laughed and said we had almost a thousand pounds of the stuff in the barn and I choked so hard the tea I was drinking went up my nose. It was his feed for his animals … or part of it. He told me if I wanted to crack some and feed it to the hens they'd probably start laying more. There was also oats and other stuff like millet. I asked him was that what was under those tarps and he said yes and then all I could think of were mice and rats and … Rand told me to calm down because it was in metal cans. He can be such a tease some times. He knows I don't like those nasty creatures.

But after that came us talking about when to plant and where and how. Sparkleberry Ranch is all treed over. The only places that it aren't completely shaded is around the inside of the home site, the road that runs in and out, the three acres we call the hay field, where I want to put the vegetable garden, and the area underneath the utility easement. The problem is the utility easement runs from sugar sand on one end to on the damp side on the other end. Rand has already marked off the best patch of ground and said for a while he's going to split the horse and mule manure between the garden patch we are trying to build up and the other place and then we'll see about planting sweet or grain sorghum in the easement and then fight the deer over it most likely.

We looked it up and we hope what he has is sweet sorghum because that would give us more than grain and silage for the animals. The seed bags he has say "tall sorghum" so we are pretty sure that is sweet sorghum. The seed heads would be the grain for us and feed for the chickens. The stripped off leaves would make decent cow or pig feed if we can get a place set up to keep them.

"I'm pretty sure that Uncle George will let me work for a couple of gilts, and Jake … you remember him from the fellowship … he and I and Julia's brother JR used to trap feral boars for the Fish and Wildlife guys when we were in highschool. If I can get us one we'll wind up with crossbreeds but it's not like it would be the first time in history. The cows … I don't know, Uncle George is going to need all he's got right now and unless he gets a bull from someplace he's going to be in trouble. All but one of his milk cows have dried up and she needs to be freshened. Man, I was going to college to get out from under all this work and worry."

I didn't know what else to do but hug him. His cheek was all scruffy and scratchy but it didn't bother me much. I knew he was under a lot of strain so I did my own looking through Momma's stuff but didn't find anything. I did find something in Daddy's filing cabinet. It was a print off from UF and it mentioned that oats, soft red wheat, rye, and some stuff called triticale could grow in Florida if you used the recommended varieties. Well goody … but where was I supposed to come up with the seeds for the recommended varieties? I wonder what is in Mr. Henderson's feed and how loud he would laugh if I asked him?

 **July 15** **th** – Apples, apples, apples. I am so happy I could dance. I made Rand eat one to see if they were ripe first though and he said the yellow ones were. The name on the tag of this apple was "Pristine" but they weren't … I mean they didn't look it. But they sure did taste it. Yum, yum!

I'm a little worried though because they seem to be getting ripe all at once. I don't know how I'm going to keep up. Rand finished tightening the last bolt on the new wagon bottom and sides right after breakfast this morning so as a test drive he took figs and apples to Momma O. Rand said he laughed nearly the whole way home. "Honey, the look on her face when I showed up with the figs and the apples was so funny. Ms. DeLois said this is one of the few times in her life she has seen her mother speechless."

I made fried apples, corn bread, and white beans for dinner and Rand and I both nearly licked our plates clean. The only thing that would have made it better was if I had a ham hock to cook in the white beans instead of just ham bouillon and had also had fresh potatoes to stew. That was one of our favorite meals when my parents were alive and we had it at least three times a month, usually four or five.

I also made one of my Daddy's favorites … Apple-Gingerbread Cobbler. I can make gingerbread from scratch but I had a box on the shelf so I figured I might as well go ahead and use it. Basically you take four medium sized apples, peel and slice them into a pan, add a half cup of water, some brown sugar and spices and then boil it for abou five minutes. Add a tablespoon of cornstarch and then boil that until it is thick and bubbly. Dump that mess into your baking dish (or into a Dutch oven) and then top it with glops of the gingerbread dough mix. It's not a hard crusted cobbler but a soft one. Mmm mmm good. Rand saved just enough and asked if he could have it for breakfast. I used to think Momma was being silly when she would say she loved to watch Daddy eat but I understand her now. It makes me feel all happy and useful and special and stuff like that.

The canning I did today was part figs and part apple. I have so many apple canning recipes that I want to try that I probably won't make the same thing twice for several days. Today I made pickled apples, apple pie filling, apple maple jam, apple cinnamon syrup, and apple-blueberry conserve after reconstituting some dried blueberries out of a can.

And Rand is a rotten stinker. He didn't tell me except on accident that tomorrow is his birthday! It was when he was telling me he wanted to save some of the cobbler for his breakfast. I don't know what to give him but I know what I made him; a Blackberry Jam Cake with Caramel Frosting from my grandmother's recipes. That and the coconut cake my great grandmother used to make were my Daddy's favorites. I don't have enough coconut to make a whole cake so it had to be the other. The thing weighs a ton and I just managed to fit it into a big cake tin. You sit the cake on the lid of the tin which then becomes the bottom and put the bottom of the tin over the cake like a cake cover. The cake keeps a really long time like that.

I asked Rand what he wanted for his birthday and he said he wanted to go hunting. I hope he has fun but I worry about him getting lonely. He is such a people person and I would be fine if I only saw him for long stretches of time. I wonder if any of his family are going to come by. Tomorrow is Sunday, maybe they will.

 **July 16** **th** – I don't know if I'll ever understand people. Or maybe something is going on. No one came to tell Rand happy birthday. I know you can't pick up a phone or anything but even if they could have apparently they wouldn't have.

Rand seemed to have a pretty good day. I made sure he had exactly what he wanted for breakfast and then he went hunting. I never heard a shot so I think maybe hunting really meant "hunting" in that he was thinking private stuff and didn't want to hurt my feelings by saying he needed some time to himself. But he came back in good spirits.

It gave me just enough time to finish lining an old jean jacket I had found while salvaging. No way will he need it now, but it should be nice and warm when he has to take care of the animals this winter. The jacket was way big so I first sewed one of these quilted vests into it and then I took a flannel shirt and fitted that as the lining. I've got just enough of the shirt left that I think I can use it to line a hat or to use making a scarf; I haven't got that far in my thinking yet.

I've never seen him so surprised. The jacket is still a little too big but Rand liked it anyway. And he really liked his cake too. He kept saying, "You didn't need to do all of this."

I waited and waited for the Crenshaws to show up or even one of them to send their wishes by someone else but no one ever came. I finally got up the nerve to ask Rand if his uncle didn't believe in celebrating birthdays or something. I didn't want to offend anybody by guessing or goofing.

"Oh it's not that. Aunt Rachel and I had the same birthday. This is a sad day for them now."

My jaw almost hit the floor. Here was a man, a real Bible –learned man I thought, and he was celebrating death?

"Rand, are you telling me no one has said anything to you for your birthday since … "

"It's OK Kiri. Don't make a big deal out of it."

"Well I am making a big deal out of it. Look at me. I'm a prime example of having a hard time grieving but I never had a problem just because someone shared the same birthday as one of my dead parents or little brother! I grieved every day. I didn't just save it up for remembering on one particular day of the year. And I sure as heck didn't … "

"Kiri! Ok Babe … simmer down. If I had been a little kid maybe it would have … "

"Little kid or not, that's just plain wrong."

"Don't say anything to them Kiri. Uncle George still isn't over it and the rest of them … "

"I won't go out of my way to say anything but if it comes up …"

"At all Kiri. I mean it. For me … just don't. OK?"

"Oh fine! But it makes no sense. Your Aunt Rachel is dead just like my parents. I can't imagine my parents wanting me to go around …."

"Kiri! "

"What?"

"I want a piece of my birthday cake."

"Huh? Oh. OK but you aren't going to change my mind by changing the subject. And they don't get any of your birthday cake. Not a single crumb. It's all for you."

"Girl, you are too much."

Rand may have been laughing at it but I still don't see how people that normally have so much sense can just be so hard headed on this one thing. When I die I don't want people to celebrate my death … I want them to celebrate my life. Of course that is supposing I have a life worth celebrating I suppose but still. I just can't see the logic in what they're doing. And whether he laughs or not it seems to me it has to have hurt him at some point even if he has come to terms with it. Just no sense at all.

 **July 19** **th** – Just haven't had time to write. Probably shouldn't be doing that now but rain has shut down my canning for the day. I've been crazy busy and Rand has too. Right after the Pristine apples came in the Flavortop nectarines came in and then Rand found the patch of Rabbiteye blueberries just in time to save them from the deer with some chicken wire cages. Then another plum tree was ripe and today I picked the first black eyed peas. We're going to eat half of them fresh and let the rest dry on the vine and I'll put them away like dried beans and saving at least as many as I started with for next year's seeds.

Saw both Pastor Ken and Mr. Henderson yesterday but I didn't have time to visit, they mostly had come to see Rand anyway. Something's up, I'm not sure what. Didn't have time to ask Rand last night because we were both so tired but I think I'm going to try and corner him tonight after I feed him. He's easier to talk to after he's eaten.

 **July 20** **th** – Preserving everything I can out of the orchard. The fruit closet isn't anywhere near full but some of the shelves nearly are and that sure is satisfying knowing that my hard work is what did that. Guess here is another truth I used to hear my parents talk about, "There's satisfaction in a job well done."

Rand has been working on his own projects. He got the nesting boxes and has them all set up nice in a chicken coop and run he built and wouldn't you know that silly hen has picked the tool box again? I think she has drain bamage or something. I tried to send Pretty Boy in there to get her to come out and he just looked at me as if to say, "If you think I'm going in there then you don't have the sense I gave you credit for." I guess there is certain types of female cranky that not even studly roosters want to deal with.

Rand is also trying out a gizmo he built for the mules to drag. It's kind of a bar thing that he has bolted the curved teeth pieces from an old cultivator that was sitting rusting in a field. To keep it from sinking too deep he used an axle and wheel rims from a little truck that was overturned off of US90. It's heavy for him to move by hand but Bud doesn't have any problems with it at all. He's using Bud more than Lou for this type of stuff because Bud is already trained to pull single like that. Lou is more of a riding or hauling temperament kind of mule. Oh, he'll pull he just doesn't pull straight like Bud does who likes to pull strong and straight. Lou likes to dance and smell the flowers … and pull braids. Silly mule.

The reason why this works is the utility easement was already root raked by the electric co-op when it was put through the land to make sure nothing would grow under the lines. The same thing can't be said of where we want to put the regular garden. Rand thinks he might be able to build a disc attachment that Bud can pull but we may still be looking at a lot of hand turning and raking in the beginning to kill off all the matted up roots and stuff.

I finally cornered Rand and asked him what Mr. Henderson and Pastor Ken had said that upset him so much. He got mad all over again and told me not to worry about it but I told him that if it bothered him that much then at the least he needed to blow of some steam and I was just the person to understand that.

After a minute of him growling and cranking a bit and deciding whether he was going to talk or not I got a kiss and we went to sit on the shade in the lanai to talk and get away from the bugs. He said we might as well be comfortable because it was going to take a while to explain.

Mr. Henderson has heard that there are going to be what they are calling some "on-going relocation projects" beginning next month to try and get people out of some of the cities up north. It will be a voluntary relocation, they aren't going to force anyone – so they say – and while that might sound like a humane thing to do at first glance, it's how they are going to go about it that is the problem.

First they are preparing temporary "camps" to put people into just to get them moved before it gets cold. Then they are going to survey areas for abandoned houses and land and then do a kind of imminent domain thing where the government will take the house or property.

Then in dribs and drabs the relocated people – after they earn points somehow to get them in some prioritized line – will be allocated the properties based on need and family size. These families will have a two year grace period before they have to prove they have made qualifying improvements to the property at which time they'll be issued a mortgage payable to the government.

They are picking primarily rural locations because beyond the relocation the government is not offering any kind of support or assistance. They expect the people to figure out how they are going to support themselves including food and clothing and whatever else they would need.

Rand was really upset when he was telling me. He said, "Aside from all of the legal questions this creates I have to wonder what idiot thought this stuff up?! If these are city folks, people who've never had to grow their own food or take care of anything bigger than a yard with a riding lawn mower, who's going to teach the skills they need? Some of the people may not even know how to operate a fireplace … I can see house fires, starvation, all kinds of illnesses because of hygiene issues. And what about water? Where do they think these people are going to get water from? This is insane!"

I was still stuck on the idea of the government just walking in and taking away someone's home or property.

Rand was still rolling. "Someone just hasn't thought this through at all! And while this area may be a great place during the winter compared to New York City, Boston, Chicago, and places like that, what happens in the summer. I doubt too many of them people will last out the first summer before they're crying to be sent home. The upheaval is going to be unimaginable if they actually get this off the ground."

"Rand, not that I don't believe you, but how does Mr. Henderson know all this?"

"Radio. He's always had this huge setup because of his ranch. Cell phone coverage over his way was always bad so CB and Ham is what he has operated with for years. And he's got the generators and fuel to pull it off. I kind of get the idea that he is even making his own fuel now too."

"How can he do that?"

"You've heard of bio-diesel plants that make ethanol, it's a scaled down version for personal production. I suspect that's why he's been salvaging all of those fields. I don't know for sure what his setup is though, he and everyone that works for him keep their lips sealed tight. I'd sure like to have a small set up for us even if we only make enough to run a rototiller and maybe a log splitter. That would save me some hard labor right there just on those two things."

Rand gave me a lot to think about before I went to go fix our dinner. I wanted to ask him about taxes but I was about full up with stuff to worry about.

For dinner I made a kind of rice thing by adding chopped apples, raisins, and freeze dried chicken to cooked rice and then simmered it some more with a little chicken broth. Rand liked it but I'm worried about him too now. No matter how much he eats he seems like he is getting thinner.

I've been looking at some of the books on the shelves and it seems to me that it isn't just the number of calories you eat that is important but the kind as well. I don't think Rand is getting enough fat for the kind of work he is doing and in the kind of heat we are dealing with. Everything I have is "lean," "fat free," "low fat," "no carbs," etc. On top of that is that we need the right balance of vitamins and minerals. This is getting a lot more complicated than I thought it would.

 **July 21** **st** – I can't seem to get that stuff Mr. Henderson said out of my head. I don't understand how the government can just take something away like that. I'm really upset.

Rand said to take it easy, they are only supposed to be taking land and homes that are abandoned and have no claims on them. But I wonder how far will they take that? Will they take land if they think you have too much to take care of or more than you need? Will they take stuff from people they don't think deserve it?

What about me? I won't be eighteen for a year and two weeks. Can they say because I'm underage and don't have a family to provide for, can they take the house and land away and give it to someone they think needs or deserves it more? This is just worrying me to pieces.

If I lose the house and the land will I lose Rand? Maybe I shouldn't wonder about that but I do. He said trust him … and I do, more than anything … but I don't really get why he is with me. He says I make him feel like a big deal, important, like he can do stuff. He says that I appreciate what he does and that I talk to him and let him talk to me. But what about all that guy stuff he was talking about? I know it is important to him. And because it is important to him it is important to me.

I don't want it to be my fault that all the hard work he is putting in around here suddenly goes up in smoke. I can't let that happen but I don't know what to do to make sure that it doesn't.

And we haven't seen the Crenshaws since before Rand's birthday. It makes me wonder if something is going on. I mean he says it isn't any big deal but there was always this back and forth before and now there isn't. Rand says it is because they have a lot going on trying to expand the house and get a place built for Missy and Bill and trying to help the Winstons get their house back in order assuming they haven't finished that. I haven't cared so much what other people are thinking or doing in a long time and I'm not sure I like it very much. It gives me a headache and an upset stomach.


	37. Chapter 36

Chapter 36

 **July 22** **nd** – OK, so maybe I was making a mountain out of a mole hill. Uncle George came by today to check on Rand and nothing appears out of whack. Maybe it is just the way things work in their family. The Crenshaw clan has been busy. And they've had a few … hmmm … shocks.

First off, Missy is going to have a baby. Uncle George is very happy about that. He says that it is about time she settled down, blah, blah, blah, lots of chauvinistic stuff. Apparently Bill is flying high. He was married once before when he was very young … as in still in barely in college young … and he and his wife had a little boy but he died of some kind of birth defect when he was only a couple of hours old. It put such a strain on the marriage that things didn't work out after that and when she left him for someone else he never expected to get married again or have children. Surprise.

The second is … Alicia and Brendon are pretty sure that Alicia is pregnant too. Uncle George isn't so happy about that because Uncle George caught them in the hayloft a couple of weeks back and Brendon had promised him that they would lay off the … ummm … interpersonal stuff until after things settled down, worked out, and they were married. Guess once you start down that path it is a hard thing to stop. Temptation got the better of them and … whoops, there you go. Not that I think it is right or anything but if they're not just willing but wanting to do the right thing and have been all along I guess you have to just deal with it. I'd be scared to death to be in their shoes, either one of them. It's not like there are hospitals, drugs, and an abundance of doctors around here. I know there is Pastor Ken but I think I'd rather die than think about him seeing … well, seeing everything and losing what little dignity I have. That's another thing guys don't have to put up with. So totally not far.

And there sure are a lot of making of babies. There's Julia, Missy, Alicia and Uncle George said he could name another half dozen without even thinking hard. What upset me was that Uncle George tried to tell Rand and I that under the circumstances either Rand should move back with them or we had to stop what we were doing. I asked him what we were supposed to be doing before I really thought it through and he acted like I was being stupid on purpose. When I did finally figure it out I just blurted out, "I wish people would stop thinking we are making like bunnies around here! 'Cause it isn't our fault if people have dirty minds!"

Uncle George has seen me pop off – I think – but he'd never been on the receiving end of it and to be honest I was embarrassed that my temper got away from me before I could grab it. But I am so tired of people doing that. Rand has told me and told me people talk but every time I run into it it feels like the first time and I get made all over again.

I was so mad I walked … stomped actually … down to the hayfield and worked on some target practice. Was so mad I couldn't see straight to hit the cans and wasted bullets.

"You through missing those cans yet?"

"Don't Rand. It's not funny. It might be easier coming from other people but from your family it is different. And I'm sorry if I embarrassed you."

"You didn't embarrass me. It's not often I get to see Uncle George left with his mouth hanging open. Come on back to the house. It's too hot out here to be terrorizing the trees."

"Rand …" I warned again.

"What? " He's way too innocent when he's having fun.

"It really isn't funny to me. How can you stand it when people, people you know you care what they think of you, act like we are … you know … doing stuff?"

"Because I know we're not. And if I let what other people think bother me I'd have an ulcer and be a nervous wreck … just like you're acting now."

"Is it that bad? I mean you see more people than I do … do they bother you because of me?"

"Kiri, stop worrying it to death. Yes, people make assumptions. No, I don't think they have the right to make those assumptions but I'm not the thought police. They'll think what they think at this point no matter what we do. As far as Uncle George goes I think he's figured out he might have spoke out of turn."

"Might have?"

"Cut him some slack Kiri. He's having to make a lot of adjustments awful quick. Uncle George has always lived for his kids only now they are suddenly growing up so fast on him, it's hard on him. And Janet is having a hard time in this heat. Add with both Missy and Alicia puking in the mornings they're back to eating Laurabeth and Charlene's hit-or-miss cooking."

"Fine. And I'll even apologize to try and smooth things over."

"Don't apologize Babe. Uncle George is a grown man and if he wants to dish it out he better be prepared to take it when he is wrong. "

"But he's your uncle."

"Just because he is my uncle doesn't mean I want you to have to change who you are and take away your right to have your own say. That's one of the first things that attracted me to you. I remember looking and seeing this girl staring at me upside down and telling me to be still or she'd dump me and I could walk. I wanted to get to know the person who belonged to the mouth so bad I decided to live after all."

He'd never said anything like that to me. It was romantic … in a kind of backwards way, but I still liked it.

Uncle George and I did smooth things over but regardless of what Rand says I think he still believes that Rand and I are … carrying on. But to do that he has to believe we are lying to him and that I don't like at all. That truly does bother me.

 **July 23** **rd** – Was so hot today I couldn't stand it. About all Rand and I have done today is lay around, eat fruit, and drink water and Gatorade that I made up by the pitcher full. Rand picketed Hatchet and the mules deep in some shade trees and we refilled their water trough three times. They didn't play at all and saved all their energy for swishing their tails.

The chickens scratched out some sand on the shady side of the barn and sat down in there until the sun got considerably closer to evening. And Fraidy lay splayed legged on the lanai.

In fact it was so hot that … well … I'm embarrassed to admit it but Rand talked me into just wearing a sundress and bathing suit bottom and letting him mist me with some fresh, cold well water every once in a while. The thermometer registered 98 degrees and the humidity was so high that it was like breathing steam and walking through molasses. He was in shorts and a tank top and took even the tank top off after a while. I liked looking but it makes me feel dangerous things so I had to stop. Made me feel like a hypocrite after the way I'd snapped at Uncle George. Rand seems to like being all hot and bothered – he kept winking when he'd catch me looking – but I'm not sure how I quite feel about it yet.

 **July 25** **th** – Heat finally broke. Took nearly three days but we had a powerful rain storm that started this afternoon and has lasted until it got dark. Rand and I got tired of sitting in the dark so we used the wind up lamp up here in the dormer. Can't have the window open because it is still raining but at least the fan should work for a while yet, at least until we can get to sleep.

Sunday all we ate was fruit, mostly the same for yesterday which was OK because it was too hot to work. Today though I cooked breakfast and then baked cornbread. I got so hot while I was watching the cornbread fry that I started seeing spots. Rand saw me start acting wobbly and got a bucket of water and made me sit with my feet in it until I could catch my breath. But it was good to have something more solid in our stomachs.

Too tired after the heat to do much even though it has cooled down. I'm just taking a break from reading some of Daddy's notes to write notes of my own. Rand is nodding off though so I'm going to stop and see if I can't convince him to give it up and just lay down.

 **July 26** **th** – Saw Pastor Ken today. He doesn't look good at all. Rand was down at the county road gate checking on the yucca plants that grow there for me. I was in the middle of canning some apple marmalade and couldn't leave it and I wanted to see how many of the plants there were down there and see about maybe transplanting some of the yucca and agave down to the area where the palmettos are. I'm trying to find "wild" foods to take advantage of.

Anyway, Rand said he saw Pastor Ken rolling by and saw how awful he looked and basically just scooted him over, took the buggy reins out of his hands, and drove him back here. We got him on the lanai and I made up some raspberry shrub … I remember the pastor saying he was fond of raspberries … and then after it looked like he was reviving a little I fixed a plate of the yellow rice and chicken that I had cooked up using canned chicken and dried peas. When he finished that I made Rand talk him into eating a couple of the baked apple doughnuts left over from breakfast.

He looked some better after that and was able to say that there have been nearly a dozen heat-related deaths over the last couple of days. Momma O was nearly one of them until Paulie was able to convince her to sit in the horse trough and pretend she was vacationing at the beach like when she was a girl. That would have been a sight to see that's for sure though I don't mean to make fun. It must have been pretty scary for her family.

"It's lack of water and the ability to cool down. People don't have the sense or the experience. When it is hot like this people shouldn't be moving around in the heat of the day."

I mumbled, "Said the pot to the kettle."

I didn't think I was saying it that loud but there had been a sudden lull in the conversation. Rand started choking on the water he was drinking and Pastor Ken started laughing outright once he'd gotten passed being surprised. "You're right of course. I just don't feel I have much choice. So many people are coming down sick and there is little enough I can do at the clinic these days. A minor injury can be handled by the regular staff and anything major gets triaged and they can handle that kind of care as well. Often enough it is end of life and easing their fears. We don't have any more pain medication, antibiotics, steroids, nothing. We are even out of gauze and bandaids and have been reduced to sterilizing sheets and tearing them into strips. They have to use sewing thread and fishing line for stitches.

I looked at Rand and he just looked back. I guess he couldn't read my mind and I hated to say anything to him in front of the preacher. We have a bunch of bottles, I didn't see the harm in giving him one. Thankfully Rand understood after I showed him the bottle behind Pastor Ken's back.

"Pastor Ken, I know this isn't much but here's a bottle of ibuprofen and another of acetaminophen. And here is a bottle of honey. Momma always put it on our small ouches when we were little. She said it was to keep the germs out and sweeten us up." I remembered that last bit with a smile. My Momma could dish out her own silliness when in the mood. "And maybe you can talk to some of the older ladies still living … I mean the lots older ladies that would remember what they had to use way back when there wasn't any money for doctors. And while I'm thinking of it, ask Alicia too. Her Daddy was … well anyway; her family was into all natural stuff so she might know something that could help."

Both Rand and Pastor Ken looked at me weird and then Rand got silly and grabbed me and pulled me behind him and he said real dramatic like, "You can't have her, she's mine!"

Pastor Ken cracked up and I tried to swat Rand but he moved too quickly. It was too hot to chase him so I let it go but I did tell him to behave or I wasn't going to give him the last biscuit like he asked for. That made Pastor Ken laugh even harder. I'm not sure what is up. I guess all real men are chauvinists at heart and letting them just let it out in the open every so often keeps them healthy and happy. I didn't always agree with Aunt Wilma but I will say this for her, she let boys be boys instead of trying to knock it out of them.

The other thing that Pastor Ken had to say scares me and I'm not sure what to make of it. He said there was a man in town looking for me. I thought for a second maybe the man I buried wasn't Uncle Charlie after all but when I asked Pastor Ken to describe him to me I knew it couldn't be him. Different height, older, talked very proper … I haven't got a clue who it could be.

He's going to bring him to the gate tomorrow morning and I'll guess I'll know then … and know what this might mean for me.


	38. Chapter 37

Chapter 37

 **July 27** **th** – I am angry. I am so angry I can't stand myself. Angry like I haven't been in a long, long time. Angry enough that I could hurt someone and do it on purpose and not give a rat's tail about it.

This morning I woke up from a very restless and almost non-existent sleep. Rand tried to comfort me but it didn't help. It didn't make things worse, but I remained weirded out and scared silly. Turns out with good reason. We walked to the gate and not even five minutes later Pastor Ken shows up with "the man." I barely recognized him.

"Young lady I am very pleased to see that you have survived the ordeal that has befallen us all recently. I've had a rather difficult time tracking your whereabouts until I gained access to the population census for this area. Official documentation allowed me to obtain a travel pass. And here I am."

He had changed. He's aged and lost a lot of weight, and it doesn't look good on him. But as soon as he opened his mouth I knew. I had to listen to him lecture me ad nauseum a couple of times a year so I ought to be familiar with his soulful Southern gentleman drawl.

"Mr. Barnes."

"Yes my dear, it is I. Some what changed as I'm sure you've noticed but still the same man on the inside."

And still fond of the sound of his own voice. That's not as mean as it sounds, he really does like the sound of his own voice. He told me so during one of his "what do you want to do when you grow up" talks. His voice is one of the reasons he went into law. It was either law or the stage. He said since there wasn't all that much difference between most criminals and most actors he chose law since it paid better with fewer risks.

"Mr. Barnes, not that I'm not … oh this is ridiculous. Why are you here?"

"Still the same direct young damsel I see. And thank goodness. We do not have much time my dear and you have some very, very serious decisions to make."

Decisions?! Try I'm being backed into a corner and given no choice except to endanger the one thing that means more to me than all the rest.

Introductions were made and we went back to the property to discuss things more privately. Mr. Barnes took quite a while to line up the way things are happening, where he stood as a matter of opinion and where we stood as a matter of law.

See, this is how it goes. Check the tax rolls. In arrears prior to the fourth wave of the pandemic? Second home? Investment property? Forfeit. Being held in trust? No forwarding address? A farm gone fallow? Forfeit. Known death but no executable will? Owe child support/alimony? Property in extreme disrepair? Criminal history? Forfeit. Forfeit. Forfeit. Forfeit.

I fell into the "being held in trust" category. Mr. Barnes said that he only knew the issue had come up because he, as a well-known estate lawyer, had been called upon by an advocacy group to try and help people that were being railroaded by the government. He regularly checked the property logs as they were issued and I was his last client unaccounted for.

They had issued the 30-Day Notice to his office the following day that the property appeared and he had been working for three weeks to try and find me. He said, "I do detest what is going on my dear but our options are limited." Basically because I'm a minor I'm in big trouble because I have no court appointed guardian living here with me proving the property is viable and homesteadable.

I do have some things on my side. There is legal documentation that the taxes are current ("We really need to sit down young lady and have a talk about this aspect of the situation.") The house is in good repair. The land is currently being farmed ("As the season permits of course, but we have no need to give them those details.") There is "documentary and dispositional evidence" of my residence on the property in excess of two months. I am not a drain on local social services, not that there is any. I am not a criminal.

But the points against me outweigh all of the above. I am under age. My court-appointed legal guardians are dead or returned me to state custody. There are a couple of people in the community who could make trouble for me if they put their minds to it. My own history of "personal issues."

"You see my dear, while I never did agree with the assessment that you were not ready for your emancipation – it would only have required a bit of restructuring with your trust – we only have so much to work with to refute their claim against your property."

"This is not fair! And this isn't just my home any more, it's Rand's too! How can they do this?!"

"We've had this discussion about the word 'fair' before. Life is not fair; we do try and find some justice however. They shouldn't be able to do this my dear. Under normal circumstances, even removing the issue of constitutionality, I would be able to delay this in the courts until it was moot when you turned 18, 21, or whatever arbitrary age they set. But these are not normal times. The President has enacted his executive powers and due process has been thrown out the window and they are seeking to not only blind justice but silence her as well. They are using administrative actions outside of the judicial system. The legal steps will be taken after people have been forced into submission and the denial of rights is a fait accompli." He sighed deeply and continued, "I found record of your aunt's passing but had honestly hoped to find you and your uncle in residence here. We could have skirted the issue of his remanding you to state custody as a clerical error of which there are not a few in this fiasco already."

I was getting so upset it was hard to concentrate on what they were saying. It made me angrier to know that they kept on talking without my input after I grew silent. It was almost as if I was unnecessary to the decision making process.

"How old did you say you were young man?"

"Twenty-one."

"Hmmm. Just old enough for it to look good on paper but not so old as to raise any hackles. Yes, let's see, one of the local judges appears to be a rather fire-and-brimstone fellow. Met him yesterday while paying a courtesy call to say I was in the area on business. I'm sure he will issue a writ authorizing a license. You'll need to talk her around of course. I'd do it from a good arm's length away. She's rather fond of her ideals no matter how strange they may appear to you or I."

They left quickly after that and I was seething so bad I was shaking and my teeth were locked together. Rand had learned it was better to give me time to pull myself together and eventually I was able to say, "Rand I am not stupid. I may appear slow on the uptake some times and the words don't always come out the way I mean them to but it sounds to me that he was seriously saying that we should … "

"Whoa! Don't go nuclear on me. Let's talk this through now that they're gone. I'd like to know what you really think of this man. I don't know anything about him."

Gathering my wits I tried to tell him the best way I could. "He's a do-gooder. Had a wife and child killed a long time ago by a drunk driver and it became his reason for living to help people that were similarly devastated. He does … did … a lot of pro-bono work. Nice just … serious about managing things the way he thinks they should go. I don't know too many adults period, must less lawyers, that would have taken the time he did with me especially after the attitude I gave him in the beginning. I used to call it 'blood money' and didn't want to have anything to do with it. He is tough and honest though, even Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie stepped careful around him."

"So basically you're saying that he can be trusted, at least as far as your business affairs go."

"Yeah. And he was pretty cool about helping me try and get my emancipation. We just drew a short straw with the judge we got."

"Ok, so let's discuss the rest of it."

"What's there to discuss? Mr. Barnes is saying you're gonna be forced to … to … marry me … so we can keep our home!"

"First, no one is forcing anyone. That's why you and I are talking. Second … he's right Kiri. As much as I hate to say it, he's right. This is our only legal recourse."

"This is just not … yeah, I know … nothing in life is fair but this is different. How can they do this?! There has to be thousands … maybe tens of thousands … of really and truly abandoned properties out there. Why this one?! Why now?!"

"Questions I intend to get answers for but we have to prioritize the emergencies here. First we need to secure ownership. Second, we need to disarm any other outstanding threats. Third, you need to talk to Mr. Barnes about the rest of your trust."

"What rest? This is it Rand. I'm sure the little bit of any money there was is gone."

"Don't assume anything. Once we get things squared away we can set up some kind of contract that states that any money is yours and … "

"Rand, I can't let you do this! You'd be giving up … "

"Would marrying me really be such a hard thing Kiri? I need to know because if it is we can scrap this whole discussion and start on plan B."

"Of course not. You just don't understand."

He got a little upset himself finally and said, "So explain it to me. Explain to me why you are so dead set against getting married."

"I'm not dead set against getting married."

"Then it must be me."

"No! Of course not. You're like perfect and everything. You fit in one of those blasted fairy tale stories … the kind I never thought I would get."

That knocked the wind out of his sails. He got quiet and asked, "Then Kiri what is it? I don't understand."

"You're being forced into it. I hate it when people force me into things. I wanted … I mean if it ever … this isn't the way I imagined it Rand. I'm not even seventeen. You're barely twenty-one. I don't think either one of us are babies but look at me. I'm a mess. I never know if I'm going to be walking with my feet or unsticking them from my mouth. You're a people person with lots of friends … People make me ill and I'd be happy if you were the only other person on the planet. You got all mad when you thought I was trying to bribe you to be my friend. What can you be thinking about this?"

We'd made our way around this house talking and we had walked into the barn for a change of scenery. "I'm thinking that I wish I would have told you how I felt sooner and we might not be going through this."

"Huh?"

"Kiri, I told you before I want to be with you. I want to be only with you … now and however many years we have down the road. I just thought like you're thinking; we are young, we have time to take things slow and enjoy things, have some fun. I wanted you to see that Julia is the past and that I was more than happy to spend not just now but the future with you. Most of all though I wanted you to be sure."

"Oh Rand."

"Kiri, yeah, this house, this land it has already started meaning something to me. But it isn't everything. I wouldn't want to go live with Uncle George … I don't know if I even could anymore and it would probably drive you nuts … but we could figure something out. As in us, we, you and me, together. I just don't want those peckerwoods to win. What they are doing is wrong. For it to be happening to you makes it even more wrong in my eyes." He brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes. "A marriage license is just a piece of paper. It has its uses. But what is most important is the public commitment … saying that these two people are absolutely and totally for each other. They've got the same goals. They're promising to work on those goals as partners. They are promising to be exclusive. And that there isn't anyone here on earth that has the power to change that but each other. I don't have a problem saying those things with you. Can you say the same thing? Look at me please. I really do need to know."

"I thought I was too young to feel this stuff. Yes, I can say that and I don't care who knows it. I just hate that you are being forced … "

"I … am … not … being … forced. Period. End of discussion."

"Rand I already do feel those things. I don't say them as pretty as you do but I do feel them. I wouldn't know what to … I wouldn't know what I'd be right now if you hadn't decided to be curious about me. It's not just about not being able to do all this stuff by myself, I could probably figure out a way to get by maybe. It's … it's … you make it worth getting up in the morning and you make doing all of this stuff fun when by rights it should be nothing but work, work, and then some more work."

"I thought you said you couldn't say it pretty."

"Rand, don't push your luck. I'm still madder than you even want to know. I'm going to have to go walk this off some or it's going to make me upchuck nothing but acid."

"Tell you what, just as soon as you tell me if you're going to let me marry you we'll take Bud and Lou for a ride. How's that sound?"

So I said yes and he spun me around enough that I got sick to my stomach for real and then he saddled the mules … Hatchet was still hacked off at Rand because he'd gotten some burrs in his mane and tail and they'd taken a long time to comb out. Rand had had to tie Hatchet between two posts and it had hurt his feelings.

While we rode I told Rand, "Your uncle is going to have kittens of every shade of the rainbow."

"Maybe not. He's more likely to be able to accept a 'marriage of convenience' than one in haste for any other reason. And I'm older than Brendon by three years. Besides, even if he has a hard time it isn't going to stop us. I love my uncle Kiri … but I'm not a little kid any more. My self-respect comes from what I chose or don't chose to do, not from anything he says to me these days."

I hope he is right. We saw the very man we were talking about as we rode across the fields to see how much hay remained in the barn at the little house …even a lazy ride has a purpose these days. But there wasn't much of a house left.

"Hey boy, don't you know just when to show up? Give us a hand loading these joists and Kiri if you can help the boys get those bricks it would be appreciated."

"I will Uncle George but do you have a second?"

Rand walked with his uncle and as they got off in the trees I heard, "WHAT IN THE SAM HILL DID YOU SAY?!"

Brendon and Jonathon looked at me. "I am not! Don't even think it. Couldn't be unless you believe in another immaculate conception so close your mouths; it … it's …," and I could feel myself tuning up and getting upset again.

"Hey! Knock it off you two! Kiri, look at me did they say … "

"No. I'm just still mad … no, not at you … just in general and specific and …"

Uncle George came out of the trees a lot calmer than he had sounded just a moment before. "Boys, leave her be. They're getting married within the week if it can be arranged. Some of what Henderson has been predicting is coming to pass. It's the only way to keep the land out of the government's greedy hands. "

So the whole story had to be told all over again. I was mad so I went to kick some of the old hay around in the barn. It was really flying. Mick and Tommy had come over to watch me. I was working up a good steam. I liked the way the last batch of hay flew so much that I hauled off and kicked the next one twice has hard … only there wasn't hay under the hay.

I kicked something so hard my teeth rattled and I nearly said a cuss word, the only thing that stopped me to be honest was the boys standing there. Tommy helped me up off of the floor where I fell and Mick ran to get Rand who came running.

"Absolutely no lectures about my temper just see whatever it was I kicked please … so I can kick it some more."

"Honestly Kiri what did you … it looks like a … Uncle George?"

"Well, will you lookee there."

There were a bunch of antique farm implements buried under the old hay. The old paint canvasses that had protected them at some point were rotting and letting all sorts of pointy shapes stick out. The wood was split and rotting but there was enough there that Rand thought it would get a pattern off of. A lot of the steel was pitted and rusted but Uncle George thought with a little spit and polish most of them should still work. There was a chiseled-shaped plow … that was in the worst condition, likely because it was the oldest. A wing shovel plow that Uncle George said was used for hilling potatoes. There was an old wooden harrow eat up with wood rot and carpenter ants but the pattern still showed and Rand pulled out some paper, pencil and a tape measure from Bob. There were a couple of old cultivators but Daddy had a new one hung up in the barn so Rand told Uncle George to take those if he wanted them.

But the two things that Rand was most excited about was a disc/harrower/seeder combination thing - it was pulled by horse or mule but it had a seat for the operator with a lever for adjusting the seed spacing – and something he called a sulky plow. "They need some repair and I have to figure out a hitch but if Clyde could help me bang out some of these bent pieces they should work without a problem. Girl, you are a good luck charm. With these and the mules we'll get that garden you want, I can help Uncle George plant, and we might even be able to trade out some work that would net us a little less work by going in shares at harvest time. If we can find an old hay rake and a sickle mower we'll be in some business.

I haven't the foggiest what those things are even after Rand tried to describe them to me. They sound like torture devices. But seeing that he was happy and still thinking of the house and land as "ours" made me determined to make the best of things.

Marriage is a big deal. We've been living under the same roof and doing stuff for each other like a couple … but there was still some stuff we hadn't talked about and that left me nervous on the ride home. I stayed there to fix dinner since we hadn't had lunch and Rand took the little wagon to start bringing the pieces he could home.

He's gone back and forth a couple of times and it's given me time to sort through all of this. I was much angrier when I started writing. I'm calmer now though I'm not sure how to bring up to Rand the stuff we didn't talk about. Just because we are getting married doesn't mean I feel any more ready for the responsibility of that stuff.

 **July 28** **th** – Mr. Barnes came back with license in hand and he was happy with the results. "I've never felt so in tune with a judge in all my forty years of practicing law," were his exact words. "I shall endeavor to assist Judge Walker by keeping him informed of what is occurring in Tallahassee these days."

"I thought you came up from Tampa?"

"No my dear. Tampa is a death trap for such as I. My great niece and her sons offered me a place in their home and it has proven beneficial for all of us. To which, I must return to them shortly. I have secured transport home on Monday which will give me time to have the papers recorded and then forwarded to the proper authorities no later than Wednesday which is the deadline. Would it be possible for you to arrange an official ceremony before then?"

Uncle George, Brendon, Clyde, and Bill had come to help Rand move the rest of the farm equipment that wouldn't fit in the little wagon. Between Rand and them and in consultation with Pastor Ken who was providing Mr. Barnes with his mobility for now it was settled that this Sunday's church service would be a good time … it would actually be a double wedding. Brendon speaking for Alicia said that by having all of us get married together it would take some of the heat off.

"Or give them more to talk about," I couldn't resist adding.

I have exactly one more day to freak out about this. And I still haven't managed to talk to Rand about … about the rest of it. Rand and I are getting married on July 30th whether I'm ready or not.

 **July 29** **th** – I woke up in the middle of last night realizing that I didn't have any idea what I was going to wear to get married. I cried, "Oh no!"

Rand jumped awake and wanted to know what was wrong. I said, "I don't have a thing to wear."

I thought he was going to laugh himself sick. "You pick the strangest times to go all girly. You are NOT getting out of marrying me. Just wear the skirt you made. I like … "

"Yes, I know you like it. No, I'm not going to wear it to get married in. I'm trying not to embarrass you or myself."

"Honey, you could go as Lady Godiva and I'd be happy."

"Oh go to sleep. You just don't understand!"

And he did, the rat. Brendon had said that Alicia was going to wear a prom dress Missy had found someplace. It was off-white and floor length, she was just taking the brightly colored ribbons off of it. There was no way I was going to show up in a prom dress even if I had one to show up in. But, there was a sun dress I thought I could do something with.

I washed the dress first thing in the morning. Rand's breakfast was a little late … more like brunch … but he just laughed and said not to worry about it. I think he is getting a little nervous too. We have to be at the park early for a little practicing and then Alicia and I will change in the community building. Brendon has seen Alicia's dress but I'm not going to let Rand see the dress I fixed until as late as possible. I even covered it up in a garment bag after I was through with it.

The dress is a green so light it looks white unless you have it next to something that really is white. It is made of cotton and for someone a lot taller than I am. It was long to begin with but since I'm short I was tripping all over it. I took the bottom ruffle off and it now falls from an empire waist line just to the top of my feet. The waist line is gathered with a string and has these little cap sleeves that are also tied with a string. I had embroidery thread that was the exact color of the dress … or at least so close you can't tell the difference … and crocheted a wide lace edge on the sleeves and around the deep neckline in front. I've never showed so much cleavage in public in my life as I'm gonna be showing tomorrow. The lace makes the simple dress pretty. There was no way I was going to have a veil. Momma had some netting but it was the wrong color and then some. But, I did find some silk flowers in light green and white and I sewed them to a plastic head band. I'll wear Momma's pearl ear studs and Memaw's pearl choker and that's about all I can do.

Rand said he was going to sleep on the sofa tonight but he's already snoring, half on and half off his mattress. I missed my last chance to talk to Rand about the other stuff. He tossed hay after they got the antique farm things stowed under tarps and was so tired I don't want to wake him even though his snoring is so bad it even made Fraidy come sleep on my bed for a change. I wish I could sleep like that – without the snoring of course. And I really hope I don't puke in the middle of the ceremony tomorrow.


	39. Chapter 38

Chapter 38

 **July 30** **th** – I am now Mrs. Rand Joiner. How cool is that?!

 **August 2** **nd** – Haven't had a lot of time for writing in my journal and frankly I didn't know what to write that wouldn't embarrass myself when I'm old and gray and reading this all again to remember things the way they really happened.

Rand and I were both awake earlier than usual on Sunday. We were so nervous we didn't know where to look. We managed to get up, tend the animals, and put what we needed in the wagon but Rand told me not to worry about breakfast. It was already turning hot and neither one of us could have eaten anyway.

Before we left I said, "This is your last chance. I won't be hurt if … "

"Forget it Kiri. My last chance came before the first time I heard your voice. God already knew about Julia and sent me something so much better that I'm glad I was smart enough to grab with both hands and hang on to. I suppose I should give you the same chance but I'm not going to. I'm not letting you get away. This may not be how I planned it but it gets us where I wanted to go and a whole lot faster than I could have hoped. I intend on spending a lot of time over the years making sure you don't have any regrets. I know that this is a little out of order from how things have being going but …. ," and then he bent on one knee and asked, "will you marry me?"

He had this little box in his hand. "I looked at my Mom's rings and they are way too big but they're yours now too. This was my Dad's mother's ring. I know it isn't fancy but it came with her all the way from Spain and belonged to her mother before her. It's small and it's old … but there is a lot of history to it and it's been in my family for a bunch of generations. Now I want you to have it, no matter what Kiri."

No one has ever given me jewelry before, not even my parents. Jewelry was for "grown ups" and inheriting jewelry didn't count in my eyes. We took the time for a kiss and all it did was make my stomach flutter even more. I told Rand I hadn't even thought about rings and then got upset that I hadn't figured out something as meaningful for him.

"Girl, are you crazy? This place, this house, your dad's files and guns … besides, I never even wore my class ring in highschool because I worked on machinery so much. As long as I have your hand, I don't need a ring."

I closed my mouth and I prayed that everything would be all right and that I don't keep making mistakes like that even if Rand doesn't think of it as a mistake. I should have been praying all along but I hadn't. Now I just hope that praying in hindsight helps just as well.

We got to the park the same time as Pastor Ken. The Crenshaw clan showed up a few minutes after that. There wasn't going to be music this time. Something had eaten a hole in the organ bellows and it had been such short notice that no one had thought to load a piano in a wagon.

There were three other couples that wanted to make public commitments at the same time once they found out that Mr. Barnes and Judge Walker were there to witness and make it official. Mr. Barnes laughed, "Well, it does appear to be contagious does it not?"

One couple was older, Mr. Barnes and Judge Walker's age. Apparently they were a widow and widower whose attachment was an open secret around town for years. The next couple was the young woman with the two small children that I met at Laurabeth's wedding and a man who looked older who was carrying a baby still in diapers. The last couple shocked me. Ron Harbinger eased over to Rand while we were waiting for Pastor Ken to finish speaking with the other two couples. "Joiner, I'm not here to spoil things. I don't want to cause problems."

Julia Winston and Ron Harbinger. Rand's face was completely blank. "If Kiri doesn't object I don't, " was all he said after Ron wanted to know if we objected to he and Julia taking advantage of the opportunity that was presenting itself. Rand's face may have been blank but his hand in mine was stiff as a board and clammy.

For the first time I felt some sympathy for Julia. It was wasted on her though because she would hate me even more if she knew. We had all gone to freshen up and change except for Julia who was only wearing a dress already too tight for her as the whole getting married thing was a surprise. I overheard her mother saying, "Frankly Julia I don't care what you want. You made your bed, now you can lie in it."

"But you're the one that told me to have some fun before I got married and my life was over!"

"I didn't tell you to make a complete fool of yourself. How many did you sleep with anyway?! Ron admits the baby could be his. Could be. Then there is poor Freddie and that crazy drugged out Chase Peters. Have I gotten them all are there are few more? What people must think of me I can only imagine. And your father has been impossible to live with. Just be thankful you're moving in with the Harbingers. You'll have to put up with Ron's grandmother and two spinster aunts but that's fitting punishment and no concern of mine. I did my best and this is how you repay me. With you out from under foot hopefully your father will calm down and get off my back." Nice mom. I wonder if she ate the rest of her young and only kept Julia and JR by accident.

Momma O patted my arm making me jump at getting cause eaves dropping, "Don't waste your time worrying about Julia, she'll land on her feet. Jared's sisters are terrors but his mother is a good woman. And Ron has had a change of heart like at an old-time Revival. She'd be a fool not to jump on his offer and make the best of it. Now let me look at you. You clean up pretty well. Here, let's straighten those flowers. Well, for Heaven's sake child, you aren't wearing those old boots are you?"

I'd figured out a dress with only a day to do it. I'd remembered to do something with my hair and to get something old, something new, and I even tied a piece of light blue string on my finger but I had forgotten all about shoes. I know I blushed because my face was hot. It was Alicia who came to my rescue. "All I have are the flat patent leathers Daddy would make me wear but … look, I'll go barefoot if you will. I don't want any reminders of my old life today."

I was the youngest so I was the last in line right after Alicia who came out after Julia. Brendon had to poke Rand twice before he moved. "Old son, I know she looks different in a dress but the rest of us wanna get this show on the road, so close your mouth and move." On Brendon's tombstone it is going to read, "My mouth got me where I am today."

Each couple got their turn saying the words. It was short but still felt like the words were being etched on a place inside me I thought had died with my family. I was crying and didn't know why. I had to squeeze Rand's hand to let him know I was OK.

Then it was over and Pastor Ken said to kiss the bride and pronounced each couple man and wife. Momma O laughed when she told me where to sit while a plate of food was brought over. "Girl your face woulda lit up a Christmas tree." I couldn't stop blushing and Rand couldn't stop grinning which only made me blush that much more.

All of us brides got passed around for hugging and kissing. I avoided what I could and endured the rest. The grooms got their share too. The food was more like a banquet. An old man, rarely in town, had roasted a whole pig. "Aw well, I need to cull her anyway. Feed's low and she had a bum leg."

Brides aren't supposed to worry about bringing food to their own reception, or so I had been told, but I had fixed a large bowl of fruit salad. I had also fixed three baskets; one for Pastor Ken, one for Mr. Barnes, and one for Judge Walker. Each basket had a couple jars of preserves, a tin of cookies I had baked the previous day, and fresh fruit. When we gave the judge's to his wife she was really very sweet about it and made a nice fuss even though you could tell she was used to the finer things in life. The pastor and Mr. Barnes were appreciative as well.

"My dear, unfortunately we have run out of time, my transportation is leaving in but an hour rather than tomorrow and I must not be late. In this envelope are the details of what has occurred over the last year and some months since last we spoke. A copy of my personal notes are also in there as well as directions for contacting me if you have need. God's Blessings on you young lady. I know your life has been … challenging … but you are being presented an opportunity here. Do not squander it wishing for what might have been."

His words were accompanied by distant thunder. The old thespian grinned like he'd timed it himself and then left to catch a military transport from at the 129 and I10 on ramp. I hope he got home OK. It's still hard to believe that if he hadn't worked so hard, not even knowing whether I was alive or dead, I would be sitting on the side of the road wondering what to do with no home and a very uncertain future.

The thunder moved everyone to action. Momma O sent all of us newlyweds home so "the rest of us can stop playing and start cleaning. Now get."

Rand helped me into the wagon seat and then was called over by his uncle and Mr. Henderson. I was holding the reins when Missy and Laurabeth came over for a quick goodbye and to put a box in the wagon. "No cooking tonight or tomorrow. We've put some goodies in here that should help with that. And no I didn't cook it, Missy did."

Missy had a look in her eyes that should have warned me, "I've tucked a few things in there as well. My only advice is to relax and enjoy yourself." Uh huh. It has to be Uncle George's genes for both Missy and Brendon to have got whatever it is they've got. There was also a box from Momma O in there.

Rand was back and everyone waved and then we were off. Rand had a happy looked on his face and said, "Guess what Mr. Henderson said. Never mind, you'll never guess. Four of those cows that he took off that eighty that sits beside us are already gonna have calves. He said he'll pick the best of the heifers and once it was weaned he'd bring it and its mother over as a wedding present. That'll give us a head start and time to get an area fenced off properly. And Uncle George said in addition to the pig and beef that he plans on butchering once it cools off, he'll give us two gilts and the use of a boar if I haven't managed to get one before then. If your little hens get busy and if I can get enough hay and forage to keep us all fed we'll be good for a long while!"

"That's good right?"

"Oh yeah Babe, that's very good. It'll be more work but it'll also mean bigger rewards. I can't wait to try the plow and disc on that garden patch we have been breaking our backs on. Just don't get your hopes up too high about getting much this first year. But think of it. Next year after adding a year of manure from the animals … and cow and pig manure are gonna be great for that … discing in the old hay bedding from the chickens … that sand should start learning to be dirt. The orchard will like the manure tea I'll show you how to fix and … "

"Manure tea?!"

"Trust me, the plants will love it. And a milk cow will be good too. And the cows, chickens, and pigs are all free range. I know somebody that has goats too. They can be wicked silly and up to all kinds of mischief but they're living lawn mowers and will clear a piece of land and keep it cleared nearly as well as a bush hog can, and they don't have to worry about stumps. And that box from Momma O? Paul said it has all sorts of seeds and bulbs in there, and not just vegetable seeds. He said to tell you his grandmother said that if you followed her directions on each envelope you could have flowers too."

I listened to him go on like that the rest of the way home. Home. Our home. Before it was an idea, now it was suddenly a reality.

We finally arrived in our yard and Rand jumped down and tied the mules to the ring and then handed me his rifle while he got the box. He opened the house up and then set the box inside the door but when I tried to go in he turned around and lifted me up and carried me over the threshold. "Old fashioned or not Kiri, I'm starting as I mean to go on. You deserve the same kind of stuff that other girls … women … expect. Just because you don't think of them doesn't mean that I don't mean to see that you have them at some point. If you want to change, I'm gonna go unhitch Bud and Lou." He keeps saying things like that and the sweetness of it makes my toes curl.

He went out and I went upstairs. It was very warm up there but not as bad as it use to be. Rand found where the vent fans had never been hooked up. I guess that was one of Daddy's projects he had been working on. I put on a sun dress just because I knew I wouldn't have to cook later and because it would make Rand happy. Then I looked at his bed and then at mine.

I had a choice to make. Nothing had been said and I knew that Rand wouldn't push me but … something about making the promises in public and what they felt like when he and I said them … I can't put it into words. It was a promise and a sacred trust. If I could say those words in front of God and everyone then I realized I could trust him with this last thing. I peeked out the window and he was still messing with the mules, probably giving me extra "girl time." I tore the bedding off the mattress and slid it over to and down the stairs. It was a bit of a pain but I was able to hide it in the storage room and throw the covers in with the dirty laundry before he came back in.

"You look flustered. You OK? You don't need to be so nervous. We're married now … I don't have to worry about you getting away … so we can slow down as much as you need."

I blushed and hugged him and I guess Rand figured he'd said the right thing. I was just hugging him because what he had said proved my own thoughts and made me even gladder I did what I did. I turned to take stuff out of the box. There was a loaf of bread and several MREs. I guess that was Missy's way of saying don't cook. There were also two packages in there; one said "to Rand from Bill" and the other said "to Kiri from Missy." On the back of each note it said, "take your time and don't get caught."

Well, I didn't have the sense to be careful and I upended my bag in my hand. Out falls this silky piece of material that wasn't much longer than a camisole and it took me a while to realize it was supposed to be a nightgown.

"Well, what's yours?" I asked determined not to be the only one embarrassed.

Rand was red in the face. "Don't worry about it. Let's just say that Missy doesn't have a subtle bone in her body. I'm gonna run upstairs and change real quick and when I come down we can talk."

There is sound proofing in the floor but with the door open I could hear him run up fast and then sort of just stop in his tracks. A few minutes later after he changed he came down slower. I was putting things away that I had left undone in the morning. Rand came up behind me as asked, "Are you sure?" All I could do was nod and I did wear that little piece of silliness from Missy, but only for a little while.

It's been nice … very nice. But I can't begin to imagine how anyone could call this "casual." My goodness, talk about interpersonal communicating. God has quite some imagination to have created this.

The next day we worked as usual but it was kind of different too. Neither one of us could seem to get the grin off of our face, not even when it turned blistering hot again. More apples and nectarines were coming in and I couldn't let them go to waste. The animals needed taking care of because, well, they're animals and ours to take care of. We did take a couple of long walks. And of course there was the daily target practice that Rand continues to be a bear about me keeping up with. I have to admit I'm getting better. Nothing fancy, but at least most of the time I now hit where I'm aiming.

Rand also managed to get the garden well and truly broken in. First the plow since the area hadn't really been planted in anything except the rye grass that Daddy would put on it in the winter and then rototill into it in the spring before it turned brown. The plow also finished the deep trenching we had started by hand. Next he ran a harrow over it to even the dirt back up. After that he ran the disc to break up the rest of the clods that the harrow hadn't dealt with.

"Your Momma knew how to pick ground. This is good dirt for these parts … hardly any clay in it at all except for that corner over there and I can probably dig it out next season. We'll need to add more manure and some of that compost when it finishes making but tomorrow, if you're ready, I'll help put the seeds in." We also finished setting the posts and hanging the fence to keep the deer out of the garden. Rand said, "I want some more venison but not bad enough to go to all the trouble of planting a garden to attract them."

Yesterday, on top of everything else in the orchard that is coming in, the pears were ready but I had to do the canning in the afternoon after we got some of the seeds in the ground. Rand had studied the square foot gardening method when he was in 4H. "It's convenient for small gardens but for commercial size stuff it is a pain. We'll try it your way but you'll need to leave me room to work the cultivator. And don't make your squares too big or you won't be able to reach the stuff in the middle since you're so short."

I laid off the grids the way the book said and then went to town planting some of what Momma O had sent me in trade for the fruit. First the beans; some were bush and some were pole which required Rand cutting me some bamboo poles. We tried a patch of corn where it wouldn't shade out anything. Cucumbers and watermelons were given room to spread. There were a couple of different patches of peppers; some hot and some not. The winter and summer squash were planted in their own areas. I planted onions by the row, bunching and multipliers. We also got a row of collards and a row of turnips planted. Next month we'll get more of the leafy green plants going, it's too hot for them right now.

I was beat after all that bending up and down but if Rand could toss hay I could can fruit. The dehydrator runs nonstop although I don't really have to do anything to it except to make sure I'm drying the fruit and not cooking it. Today the first sweet peaches were ready and when I put them on the table for dessert Rand blinked his eyes like he was seeing things. I don't know what the big deal was, we'd had nectarines for over a week. He peeled and sliced one for me as the fuzz just freezes me to death.

"I saw Uncle George today while I was getting that hay. How would you feel about some company tomorrow?"

"Company?"

"Help too. It turns out Alicia and Melly and the boys are coming over while Brendon and Clyde help me see about breaking in a little more space in the utility easement. Uncle George wants to know if we'll grow some for him and if I can get the help I don't see what we shouldn't try. And they're going to help cut up some more of that wood and take some with them as well. Uncle George cleared most of his land years ago for the cattle and they go through more wood than we do. There's a couple of dead trees around here that need dealing with and we're going to mark off and cut them down over the next couple of days and we'll split it between the four households. Bill is helping Uncle George get the new addition plumbed out and get the floor leveled. I hate that they undid all that work we did to the new kitchen but they just couldn't work around it."

The days are just as long as they ever were but the nights are a little shorter and I've noticed Rand isn't jumping up and out of bed quite so quick in the mornings. As tired as I am I'm not sure I'm going to be able to keep up the pace much longer. I haven't even looked at the papers that Mr. Barnes left for me. Rand is looking over them now because the way Mr. Barnes writes things out gives me a headache; legalease is his second language but thank goodness he doesn't talk that way. And thank goodness Rand was getting a business degree; at least he'll half way understand what all the gobbled-gook is that Mr. Barnes was forever going on about.


	40. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

 **August 3** **rd** – I wonder if what happened last night counts as our first fight? Rand really had a royal snit fit over those papers and ledgers from Mr. Barnes. It wasn't all at me but I still felt like … oh, like I was on trial or something. I didn't cry or nothing, not in front of him anyway, but I've wanted to off and on all day today.

I just never paid any attention to the money; it always felt like blood money. All I know is that it paid off all of my parents outstanding debts, took care of my medical bills, and was going to pay for me to go to college. And that a salary was paid to Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie for taking care of me and they would apply for any extra expenses. That's all I knew, that's honestly all I cared about knowing. That's why I put up with Mr. Barnes' lectures and stuff … so he could care about all the rest of it.

It wasn't a giant sum of money. A lot of the accrued interest got lost in the recession, but none of the principle. By the time I got out of college the only thing I would have been able to claim is that I didn't have to resort to student loans and there would have still been just enough left over to pay the property taxes for a couple of years. No luxuries or anything like that, not even a car unless I had opted for community college or local public university. Considering I've never learned to drive that never bothered me, I liked pedaling my way around since it helped me work off my feelings. But I guess when you look at it before that it was a good sized wad of money … was being the operative word.

The recession ate up the interest that Mr. Barnes had been able to get on the money at the beginning. When that happened he transferred it to "conservative" and "long term" type investments. I still have the stocks but they aren't worth much anymore. He'd taken the money out of gold and silver certificates and transferred them to real metal back when the stuff had spiked but when things got so bad that the dollar didn't mean much … neither did the pound, euro, yen, or anything else for that matter these days … the government, in an effort to try and do some type of inflation/deflation control … changed the law to where private citizens could no longer personally own precious metals for currency or investment; they also said that things like ETFs and certificates had no value at all since they were nothing but paper and claimed they were unbacked by actual metal. They gave people a grace period to have their precious metals willingly exchanged – including vintage coins and jewelry – "dollar for dollar" at whatever the going rate the metal was on that date. Anyone who failed to turn their metals in during that period was subject to confiscation and they could fight it out in the courts.

Mr. Barnes wrote that so few people were taking the government up on their "offer" in the beginning that a search and seizure practice went into effect. It started with safety deposit boxes and warehouses and went down as far as private homes. Many other countries followed suit and even the rich and famous found their normal "off shore" hideaways were no longer safe … if it wasn't the US then it was the governments of other countries, often backed by their military. He'd been warned by some friends and did the exchange almost immediately. He beat the sudden pop of the gold bubble and I actually managed to break even despite the heavy losses on stocks.

Federal taxes ate up a good chunk of it too last year, but because of the attacks on Washington DC that happened and such a high loss of personnel and access to records, federal income tax is on hold since there. Things are a real mess in the financial sectors. Wall Street crashed worse than it ever has but it has come back some for now due to foreigners looking for a safe haven for their remaining money. When China and Russia got into it things started popping in China so bad that their financial control in so many countries has faltered badly. On top of that when people lost confidence in the Asian markets countries started defaulting on their loans from China and that house of cards collapsed.

I could probably go on and on about all the awful things that have happened, Mr. Barnes certainly did. All I know is that what I used to have barely exists these days. It might amount to something many years down the road but that is just conjecture. Florida, needing cash money so badly to continue operating and paying their national guard, took an unprecedented step of issuing bonds on future property taxes. You bought the bond and rather than cashing the bond in for currency you earn "credits" for paying off county and state property taxes … local taxes were not covered by the bond. "My dear, I've had many tell me that I was insane for buying these bonds on my clients' behalves but I feel in my bones that they are worth the investment. The value of this investment will be determined by the change in value of the local currencies that we must deal with."

Another note was included hastily scrawled in Mr. Barnes chicken scratch handwriting. I have no idea how a person who can talk so beautifully can have a handwriting that is so terrible. "My dear, I was just able to convert the last of your riskiest investments into these ridiculous 'sand dollars.' I was rather impressed with your young man. Judge Walker also spoke rather highly of his family. With your permission I will take these monies and invest them in hard goods as they become available. My nephews are rather resourceful young men who work in shipping. With luck you will meet them in the not too distant future. Goodbye my dear. May God Bless your union and keep you safe."

Rand was so upset because he thought I was being careless about it all when I should have been grateful. I tried to tell him again and it only made it worse. Then I got mad and asked him if he had been so on top of things when he was my age and younger and he yelled he hadn't been given a chance, there hadn't been anyone looking out for his interest like Mr. Barnes had been looking out for mine. And I asked, a little louder than necessary, if this was one of the guy things he had been talking about because if it was the money he could have since I had never wanted it. He stomped off then I stomped off and didn't want anything to do with anyone I was so miserable. I sure didn't want him to see that he'd made me cry.

Then when I came back to the house he was really angry at me for going off in the dark and worrying him. And I snapped back at him that he'd taken a walk so I could too. A few other nasty things were said by both of us that I'd prefer not to record for posterity. I stayed downstairs to clean the last few dishes and he went upstairs, neither of us talking. It was only maybe ten minutes but by the time I got upstairs he had fallen asleep. I know he didn't mean to now … I would have then if I hadn't been nursing my hurts. He was still dressed and laying on the bed and one of Daddy's books was on his chest.

I picked the book up and got in bed but it felt like hours before I could go to sleep. It felt like I had just shut my eyes when he started banging around asking me why I hadn't woke him up last night. And it started all over again. Only this time we had to stop before his family arrived. The words stopped but my hurt didn't.

I hate being fake. I absolutely hate it. I always break down after a while and wind up exploding in picture perfect HD and surround sound. But I managed to hold it in well passed lunch. There wasn't time to pout. In the morning the guys were cutting wood and we prepped everything and started canning. In the afternoon the guys started working the mules in the easement and the gals finished up everything they had prepped.

We had five fires going because Alicia and Melly had brought their equipment and some jars. We made huge pots of applesauce and apple butter; apple juice, apple jelly and spiced apple jelly; apple chutney and apple catsup; apple cordial and a gallon of what Melly swears will be apple wine. We made a couple of apple pies for lunch and to drink I made apple lemonade by taking apple juice from tart green apples and mixing in a little powdered lemonade mix; had lots of pucker power so I added a little honey to sweeten it up.

Then we went at the pears. We started with an Apple-Pear Preserves mix and then went on to pear sauce and pear butter. Then we went on to plain canned pears and then since we had so many we doctored up about four different batches: cinnamon pears, mint pears, orange pears, and pineapple pears that I used a big can of pineapple juice that I hadn't known what to do with. We also made pear relish, pear honey, pear preserves, pickled pears, brandied pears (this was Alicia's idea), pear chutney, gingered pears, pear mincemeat (this was Melly's mother's recipe), and caramel spice pear butter.

But we weren't through; with five fires going and all the helping hands we had you can really move some canning jars. The peaches and nectarines all got used interchangeably in recipes. If we had peach butter we also had nectarine butter. If we had pickled peaches we also had pickled nectarines. We canned them whole, in halves, in slices. We made conserve, preserves, jam, spiced butter, pie filling, and chutney.

Everyone got some of everything to take home but the majority went into the summer kitchen for Rand and I since they were our trees. After everyone packed up and left I was so tired I was shaking and I was hoping like crazy that Rand wouldn't mind leftovers for dinner because I was just about at my limit.

I walked out to the barn and I was so tired I didn't look before I walked in. I got a face full of hay where he'd been pitching some out that had gotten wet and was trying to sour in the heat. Then suddenly it wasn't just hay; Rand had me and was brushing hay off me and hollering my name to ask me if I was OK.

"Rand! It was just hay! Why are you doing that? Rand, there went a button! How am I going to find it in all this mess?!"

"Kiri! Are you OK?!"

"I'm fine. What's wrong? What did I do?"

"Do? You?! I had a pitchfork! If I hadn't seen you … inches … pulled my arm just in time … inches … don't ever … inches …"

I was so smushed up against his sweaty chest I couldn't even tell him I was fine. Hay was all in my hair and down my shirt and I even had to dig it out of my nose and ears. Well, I'm not going to write the rest but I was digging hay out of other places too by the time we'd made up.

"Kiri, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go to sleep last night. I was just so tired. I don't want to go to sleep angry ever again."

"You probably will you know. I've tried to warn you about my temper."

"Likely we'll both get angry but no matter what from here on out we don't go to bed that way. And about the money thing, I knew better. I listened to my parents fight about money almost to the day my mother died and my Dad was cussing about some bill he had gotten from the hospital when he had his heart attack and died. Moved over here and had to listen to Uncle George and Aunt Rachel do the same thing. It's not a good way to live."

"Rand, I never meant to be irresponsible. I just have never had much use for what Mr. Barnes took care of beyond what it could get me. If it took care of this house then good. If it could put me through college then good. Beyond that, I just didn't care about it. Maybe I would have at some point but up to now I just haven't. Maybe there is something wrong with me."

"Nothing's wrong with you. Don't say that. I hate for you to think that that is what I think, 'cause it isn't. But from here on out, you do need to care. Do you have any idea what he was talking about as far as that last note he wrote?"

"Count me clueless. What Mr. Barnes thought important and what I thought important didn't always match. He won't … well, he won't squander it. He'll think he has invested in something that makes sense and more than likely it will … up to a point. But what it could be is anyone's guess."

"Well, I'll guess we'll just have to see and be careful to stay on top of the rest of it. Your Mr. Barnes isn't a young man Kiri. We both know how fast things can change. You need to start making independent verification of what he is telling you."

"Can't you do that?"

"I'll help but this is your money Kiri."

"It's ours."

"Yours."

"Ours."

"Kiri, it's yours."

"In the old days the guys always got a dowry and stuff to marry a girl."

"Well this isn't the old days and … no … don't start that again."

"Then stop fighting me on this."

Rand thinks it has been settled his way and I know it has been settled mine; the money or whatever it is will be ours and that's final.

 **August 4** **th** – Nearly put my foot wrong again. I honestly didn't think much of it. Rand didn't celebrate his so I figured what was the since in celebrating mine. It wasn't a marker to getting me what I wanted anymore; I already had everything I wanted.

When I told Rand that right when he was starting to tune up his mouth just kind of fell open; all of the guys' mouths did. What's the big deal anyway? Eighteen used to be important. Seventeen would have meant only one year more to go. I don't need to worry about eighteen because I got things squared away early. It's just another day now.

The day started out well enough. I was so happy that we fixed things yesterday that I really wasn't paying much attention to what today was. I mean I knew but it wouldn't have been the first time that things were too busy for it to get noticed by anyone else.

Clyde, Brendon, and this time Bill came with the boys and the first thing out of Bill's mouth was, "Found you something your uncle calls a horse drawn hay tedder."

Rand asked, "You serious?!"

A hay tedder apparently moves freshly cut hay around until it has dried enough to be baled or stacked.

"Got word by way of Ron Harbinger if you can believe that. That old tractor dealership … the one that went to selling Kabotas several years back … well, the guy that used to own it is dead for sure now and his wife wants help moving into her parents' house out on River Road but she don't have anything to trade. Most people are wanting cash or groceries and she doesn't have either. Harbinger talked her into letting them pick over the old equipment out back and she was more than happy to have the trade for that. Harbinger said there were a few pieces in there too heavy for his father's horses so he'll take the light ones and if your mules can pull then you're welcome to the other ones."

"What's the catch?"

"We gotta go now and move that lady's stuff. She wants it done as quick as possible because there's been trouble out that way and she wants to go where her brothers are for protection."

So Rand hitched up the mules and headed out with everyone. I wasn't for sure whether they'd be back for lunch so I made apple beans that could go for our dinner in case they didn't show up in time. Basically the dish is white beans baked with chopped apples, brown sugar, and the other stuff you put in baked beans. I also put a little bit of freeze dried ham dices in there and then made up two pans of corn bread. It wasn't fancy but beans are filling if you doctor them up a bit and the bean broth is really good for spooning over cornbread.

While the beans were baking there were two recipes that I hadn't been able to get to yesterday that I really wanted to try. The first one was Dutch Apple Pie Jam. My Momma had made this and given it as a gift in the holiday baskets she always made. First you need a pound of green apples. Just so happened I knew just where to find some as the Granny Smith wannabe in the orchard was putting them off by the bucketful. You had to peel and chop the pound of apples to make two cups of fruit and then you put it in your kettle with one-half cup of raisins, one cup of water, one-third cup of lemon juice, one teaspoon of ground cinnamon and one-quarter teaspoon of ground allspice. To this mess you need to add four and one-half cups of white sugar, one cup of firmly packed brown sugar, and one-half teaspoon of butter. Place the kettle over high heat and sitr all of that mess until it comes to a full boil and boil it hard for one minute, stirring constantly. Now at this point in recipe you are supposed to remove the kettle from the heat and immediately stir in a package of liquid fruit pectin but I didn't have any. What I did have was Alicia's recipe for homemade pectin so I stirred it in and removed the pan from the heat. Then I stirred and skimmed foam for five minutes to prevent floating fruit. After that it was just pour and seal as usual.

Homemade pectin is pretty easy and Alicia said she hadn't even realized that you could buy it in the grocery until she took Home Ec in middle school. She told me, "Since I had never seen the inside of a grocery store except on TV you can imagine how much fun the other girls had with me that semester. That was one of the first times my parents had the county called on them. It was so embarrassing but because of it the school district wouldn't approve my parents homeschooling Tommy and I. I would almost preferred if they had. We dressed different, talked different, acted different; poor Tommy had it worse than I did. Little boys can be cruel and it is worse because he is small for his age."

She showed me how to start the pectin before she left yesterday and now I'll be able to make some of the recipes I couldn't before. You take two pounds of under ripe Granny Smith apples that you've washed and cut into eighths, peels and cores too. Then you put them in a pan with four cups of water bringing it all to a boil. You need to cut the heat back to medium (all I could do was move the pan back from the heat) and simmer for twenty minutes. Then you let it all cool. While it is cooling you line a bowl with dampened cheesecloth. When the mess in your pot is cool you pour the pulp and juice into the cheesecloth and then lift it up by the corners, tie a knot and then figure out a way to suspend the cheesecloth bundle over the bowl and allow it to drip into the bowl overnight. The next day, measure the apple juice and it pour into a large pot. Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat and cook until reduced by half. You should wind up with about one and a half cups of liquid and you need to use it right away. If we had refrigeration I could keep it up to four days or it would keep in a freezer for six months … I didn't have either so I used it up finishing the batches of Apple Pie Jam.

What's more, looking it up in some of my Momma's notes … now that I had something to look for … I found out that you can do it with any kind of unripe apples (and crabapples too) and you can can it and seal it in jars for using out of apple season. I started several batches of it this afternoon. The summer kitchen looks just horrible but it is for a good cause and I'll get it cleaned back up tomorrow.

The guys came back a little after lunch and they had all sweated through their shirts and pants but boy were they in high spirits. "Kiri! You won't believe it! There was a hay tedder, a horse drawn mower, and some odds and ends you might be interested in. I got a block and tackle for the barn so I don't have to keep moving those square bales up to the loft by hand. There was a box of burlap bags and we're splitting them with Uncle George and we're also giving him the most of the barrels since they need more water storage than we do. "

I'm not sure about me being interested in block and tackle or in a hay tedder, although if they make Rand that happy then I'm all for them, but the burlap bags sound interesting though I don't know what I'll use them for yet and there was a bunch of Watkins brand stuff that I guess they were selling as a side line like Avon or something. Watkins brand stuff is all sorts of natural and organic stuff like for cooking and cleaning and things like that. Since I knew that Alicia would be bent at Brendon for not bringing any home I split everything between us.

It was while we were all sitting around eating that the subject of my birthday came up. Clyde is worried that he is too old for Melly – he'll be thirty on his next birthday – and somehow or other they started talking about the ages and age difference in all of the recent marriages and those of their parents. "Well, Kiri is still the youngest I've heard of at 16."

"Seventeen."

"Sixteen."

"I was sixteen when we got married but I'm seventeen today."

"When did you …?"

"I told you. I'm seventeen today."

Gee whiz. I don't know what all the fuss and bother was about. After everyone left Rand and I worked it out but I keep running into these things I need to remember to do or not do to keep the peace. I told Rand I was sorry and that I didn't mean to start a fight and he hugged me and told me I hadn't started another fight but he was upset that he hadn't done anything special. I told him we just got married a few days ago and what could be more special than that? Then he got all mushy and I barely got a chance to finish cleaning things up.

He's snoring now and I don't have the heart to wake him up. He only does it loud when he is really, really tired but I couldn't sleep so I decided to sit down and finish this. I really like the new arrangement but his snoring gives me the giggles so bad sometimes my stomach hurts.

 **August 5** **th** – When it rains it pours and that's just about what it has been doing all day today. I haven't been able to get a thing done, the house is damp, and now I'm going to be behind on my laundry. I'm also getting cranky from my monthlies. I was embarrassed to death trying to figure out how to tell Rand no … well … none of that stuff … but he was actually very understanding. He's one surprise after another though I suppose I should know that by now I can talk to him about anything.

 **August 6** **th** – Clear morning. Nice services but no marriages this time. What we did find out was who was causing problems for us and I can tell you that I am upset. Things always seem to come back around and bite you right when you think they are all taken care of. I'm just exhausted from worrying and dealing with it today and Rand has told me let's just go to bed. There isn't anything to be done and we are both in need of some sleep.


	41. Chapter 40

Chapter 40

 **August 7** **th** – What an awful two days. On Sunday we were running late and had just gotten up to US90 when we ran into Mitch Peters. We could both tell right away that something was up as he wasn't exactly walking his horse and it looked like he was heading back towards the Henderson place.

"Please. Y'all need to know I didn't have a thing to do with what's been going on. Mr. Henderson and Judge Walker have tore some people up one side and down the other and it's taken care of most of the fence sitters but there are still some hardcore … "

Rand stopped him saying, "Yo, Mitch … little back story needed."

"Sorry Rand. I'm just … well, it ain't polite to say what I am at the moment. That trouble you and Kiri had, it started with my stepmom and her family. Jared Harbinger took part in it but Ron's coming all unglued about it, screaming at them when he found out this morning. He's actually the one that told Pastor Ken and Mr. Henderson. He saw the danger of it to the rest of us right away."

I looked at them and asked, "What danger?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know but considering the circumstances I had to stiffen my spine and climb out of my shell.

As we rode the rest of the way to the park, Mitch returning with us, they explained, "It opens a whole can of worms, them bringing the notice of the government to this area. A lot of people, based on what your lawyer friend said, are going to be in trouble. Anybody that has fallow ground could lose everything. No fuel to even turn the ground to make it look like it is being worked. No money to buy seed to plant even if you could turn the ground. Bringing that point up is what got most of the fence sitters and some of the others on the other side to rethink their opinions. They've already started building one of those relocation centers out at the old supply depot because the airstrip is still useable. They'll branch out from there, looking for places to move people out into the community."

"It's all because of what I did to Chase isn't it?! Oh Rand I'm so sorry, look at what I've caused and … "

I didn't get any further, wasn't allowed to go any further. Neither of them would listen to a thing I said which was a little upsetting on top of everything else. "Kiri, he was my little brother and I loved him despite his faults but he made his choice. He loved the drugs more than he loved his family. I knew as sure as I talking to you right now that if he didn't get done with the drugs permanently they were gonna kill him or something he did while he was drugged up was gonna get him killed. I'm thankful that he didn't take anyone with him and it hurts to say that like you don't wanna know."

All the rest of the way there they were discussing how we should handle things, but I knew I needed to take responsibility somehow and draw the heat off of the people that didn't deserve it. How I was going to manage that without making Rand angry was actually my main concern at that time.

We finally arrived and if I hadn't known ahead of time that there had been trouble I never would have realized it. There was a small knot of people hanging together and I recognized Mr. Jared Harbinger among them but none of the others. Everyone else was staring a little bit but no more than usual. What was strange was that Ron Harbinger came up and shook Rand's hand and made a point of talking pretty loud about the work they had done together the day before and making some plans to maybe do some mowing and plowing together in the near future. Julia stood off to the side and was looking embarrassed and sulky but Ron didn't let her get too far away from him. And if it wasn't Ron leashing her, it was these two other women that looked to be about Mrs. Winston's age boxing her in and not letting her wander off and talk to whomever she was trying to get off to see. I assumed those were Ron's two unmarried aunts.

Momma O called me over and she and Judge Walker's wife made a point of asking me how things were going and then asking for my recipe for different types of pears. Apparently Alicia, Laurabeth, and Missy had already been out and talking me up. Once Momma O and Mrs. Walker started talking to me about that sort of stuff several other ladies came over and started talking and they wanted to know how I was managing it without electric or gas and I told them over an open fire and then we all really took off with the older ladies giving some other tips.

I said I wished we could all get together and share this stuff or that everyone would slow down so I could write it down and Momma O laughed said that was a fine idea and that she'd discuss it with a few of the other ladies she knew and that maybe we could get together and have an idea exchange, sort of like a ladies' social or a quilting bee or something.

No sooner had I gotten excited about that than it was time for us to get back to our families so that the Pastor could start the sermon. I was surprised but I actually remembered the words to over half the songs that were sung; well the first verses anyway. They were the old songs … Amazing Grace, Rock of Ages, I Love To Tell the Story, In The Garden, and a couple of others I recognized from when I was little. Pastor Ken was on a role, talking about the need to be a community and support one another and to behave in Christ-like fashion. He warned against vices such as gossip-mongering, jealousy, envy, revenge, stealing, lying, cheating … drinking and immoderate living too … wasn't too many he didn't seem to cover to be honest.

He was hitting home with some folks. There were a lot of nodding and innocent looking faces but there was just as many squirming backsides and feet and hands that didn't seem to know what to do with themselves. I know the revenge warning made me rethink some of my own actions and the gossip-mongering made me squirm like a worm in hot ashes. I could have put it down to necessary information gathering but if I did I sure would be cutting it a fine line.

I was happy to be heading back home after the service because I had a lot of thinking to do but that's right when the trouble started. Chase's mother … who I found out was a tall blonde woman named Lurlene Houchins since she'd retaken her maiden name after her second marriage also failed … started twisting some of the things that Pastor Ken had said and making a lot of statements that were supposed to be innuendo but that were pretty plain who she was talking about and why.

Rand grabbed my hand and we were just going to leave. Neither one of us were wanting trouble, certainly not at what amounted to church. We were trying to cut her some slack as she was grieving her son and looking for something tangible to blame for his death. Then Jared Harbinger started up and brought up all that old stuff wondering aloud about his son Fred's death and how it was some kind of conspiracy or something equally crazy.

"Dad, Fred got Fred killed by messing around with that girl after her dad and brothers had told him that the next time they caught him around what they were going to do to him. He thought he was too big and too bad and he was just flat out wrong. It could have been me just as easily but it wasn't … and I aim to try and do better from here on out. I married Julia and whether the baby is mine, Fred's , or Chase's we'll raise it like mine and it won't grow up doing the things that I got away with doing. You and the things you do were part of the problem … I'm not going to let them interfere with me no more so give it up. He was my little brother and my best friend … and the person I led into trouble more often than not … but he is dead. Let him rest in peace."

I could see Julia was horrified at what Ron was saying but was even more upset that no one came to her defense.

Then it was Mitch's turn. "Lurlene, you know that Chase had problems. How many times did you pay to send him to rehab? I know Dad paid for it three times and when he just went right back to doing what he wanted to do he wouldn't pay no more. Your parents sent him at least twice that I know of. Face it, Chase could act pretty … "

"You weren't a brother to my Chase! I heard what you did … letting that lunatic over there throw him in with that dead woman! How dare you pass judgment on him like that. What have you done since he's been dead?! Nothing … you stick up for his murderer is all! I wonder what other of our men that little (blipped out in the interest of my own peace of mind) has led astray. Chase was just an innocent with a few problems he would have grown out of if he had had the chance. She took that from him … and from me! I will not be denied. I will have justice for my son!"

Life had suddenly turned into a horrible cowboy movie where everyone always seems determined to settle things with a gun. Thankfully Ms. Houchins is a worse shot than me and couldn't hit the side of a barn if it jumped right out in front of her. Unfortunately what she did hit was our little wagon, the wagon I had just ducked down on the bench of when I saw her aim at me. I wasn't holding on to anything and Bud rear up joggling the wagon pretty bad. Rand grabbed his head quickly but I lost my balance and went head first over the side.

I couldn't breathe and all the screaming and carrying on didn't help my concentration any. I landed on a stump with my chest. It was high enough to trip over but not so high that it stabbed me; it was about eight inches across, it felt like that time in school when a baseball had taken a bad bounce and caught me in the one place a girl really hates to get hit. I was up on all fours trying to crawl away from the wagon in case Bud decided to run when I felt Rand pulling me up and into his arms. Everyone thought I'd been shot.

It was a while before I was able to take a full breath and I have a horrible rainbow bruise on my right … on the right side and I it hurts to carry anything with my right arm. I'd seen angry people before but I'd never seen an angry mob. These same people who'd just been sitting down calmly listening to a church service had suddenly become … scary. They looked like they were going to lynch Ms. Houchins and Jared Harbinger and maybe a couple of the others too right there in the park.

It took me a couple of tries but I made Rand help to stand me up and I said, "Stop it! … I said STOP IT! Please don't do this. I did kill her son … I don't see how I could have done any different unless I was to let him kill me first but that doesn't mean that I'm not sorry for it. And she's half crazy with grief. I've been there myself when I found out my family had been killed. Just … just stop it … please. This isn't … this isn't going to help anything and you won't like what you have to live with afterwards."

I was running out of breath again but I was also to the point of tears. It seemed every time I thought I had something good and that everything was going to be OK something came along to try and destroy it.

Thankfully Rand understood and with me in his arms he said, "Haven't we got enough problems people? You think they're going to stop with Kiri and I now that they've noticed our community? If you do you're crazy. Listen to Mr. Henderson. They're already setting up one of those relocation centers up in Lake City. They're going to spread out from there in the coming weeks and months. Stop wasting time and spend it cultivating a garden, keeping your house in good repair and lived in, securing your winter supplies somehow. And if you have somebody come up and say 'We're from the government and we're here to help' I suggest you be real careful about accepting anything they're offering."

Uncle George hobbled up without his crutch for the first time in a while and said, "Me and mine are working to save what we've got. There's other in the community doing the same. There is no time to waste. No one is coming to the rescue. No more work days. No more ration books. No more handouts. The only thing you are going to get is what your own back and hands can provide for your family. I suggest you all think on that and remember what it was like in the old days … 'cause that is all we have and that is all there is. To think anything else is foolish and dangerous to yourself and the rest of us."

I can't say that we really influenced anyone but it didn't feel like a bunch of hyenas were loose in the park any more either. We left at that point. Ms. Houchins was having some kind of hysterical fit and the older folks Rand said were her parents along with Mitch were talking to the Judge. I guess they were trying to figure out what was to be done that would satisfy enough in the community that people would let it go. Eventually Rand and I got home, escorted by some of Mr. Henderson's men. When Rand saw how bruised I was I thought he was going to go off again and I literally begged him not to, that I just wanted to shut the gates and us take care of us.

I couldn't do much work and Rand was wound too tight to do much more than stick close to me. When I tried to practice with the pistol it hurt but was bearable but when I tried to practice with the rifle one shot nearly had me puking my lunch up. After that Rand wanted me to go back to the house and lie down for a while but I told him I needed to pick the dried black eyed pea pods first.

Rand helped me to do that and then he tossed the bushes into the compost pile. I'm going to have to start another pile pretty soon but Rand also found a design for taking a barrel and making a rotating compost container that works scraps into compost a lot faster than it gets done in a regular compost heap. Dad wrote on the page that it came from the website  projects/bin_  but it was just like the one in an old Rodale gardening book I was reading. Rand promises that when he is done I'll be able to turn it even when it is full. If I can believe everything Momma wrote in her notes – and I have no reason to believe I can't – Rand and I are going to need lots and lots of compost to keep the garden going, especially since we're not going to have all those fancy fertilizers when what we do have runs out.

After that Rand really did pull the guy card and made me lay down for a while. He laid down beside me and we both wound up sleeping nearly an hour and a half. Rand didn't want me to get up but I couldn't just lay there no matter how good it would have felt because I knew he was going to go downstairs and work.

When the guys had been by that last day they had helped Rand set seven twelve-inch cypress posts in the ground outside of the summer kitchen. Today he added some rafters and trusses and as he gets the materials and the chance he will deck in a small roof and then cover the decking over with cypress shingles that he "liberated" from the scrap yard of the old log cabin company between our place and Lake City on US90. As a matter of fact, he and the guys had "liberated" quite a bit of cypress in logs, siding, shingles, and other stuff like that to help build the additions and houses at the Crenshaw farm and Rand had taken some for a few projects he had in mind as well. Rand also brought back four little wagons full of cypress sawdust for animal bedding. He says there is a lot more where that came from and that we can compost it separately when we clean the barn; the sawdust will make clean up in the barn easier … especially the wet stuff. One of the many projects on Rand's list is a dirt floored barn but that is a cooler weather project that will take lots of hands.

While he scrambled around like a monkey messing with the porch he is building me so that I can preserve food out of the sun, I sat and worked on our calendar trying to figure out what was coming in the near future, whether I had enough jars, where I was going to put everything and what I would like to stock up on if we ever have the chance.

Rand wouldn't let me cook last night and we ate a couple of the MREs that Missy had sent in our "honeymoon box." They aren't bad but I wouldn't call them good either. They remind me a lot of cafeteria food.

I spent a restless and uncomfortable night and was grateful for the nap I took. I can't imagine how tired I would have been tonight if I hadn't gotten that little extra bit of sleep. We woke up to the smell of smoke … not the good kind from a cooking fire but the kind you get from something burning out of control.

Rand and I ran until we found the fire at the first salvage house, thank goodness the house is in a good sized clearing and not right up against a bunch of trees. We dug the best fire break we could under the circumstances and then did our best to put out any embers that flew away from the house. Mr. Henderson, Mitch, Bradley, Hoss, and a couple of other men I didn't recognize came galloping up and helped us. A patrol group has seen the black smoke and called for back up Someone had set it on purpose is the only thing we can think of. To scare us or who knows what maybe or just as likely just to set a fire; some people are like that. There had been a few reports of building fires in other places in the county.

It didn't take long for there to be nothing left of the little house. Rand and I thought of the other houses at the same time and we took off to check on them. Rand wanted to send me back to the house but he didn't want me going by myself so I got to tag along. The second house had been gotten into by someone. The back door had been busted in and it was more wanton destruction than salvaging. The messy house was the same way but the fourth house hadn't been touched, probably because if this all happened at night it sits way back out of sight behind some overgrown hedges.

Rand was fit to be tied and frankly so was Mr. Henderson but we couldn't say for sure that any of it was a direct result of what had happened at the church service. The wanton destruction though spoke of someone with too much time on their hands in my opinion but Rand and the other men gave it a more sinister slant. Maybe it was my age but it sure seemed like something some of the dumber kids I had gone to school with would have gotten a kick out of doing.

By the time we got back to our own yard Brendon and the others had shown up. They were supposed to work on the easement fields but instead they took the wagons, horses, and mules and started taking the remaining three salvage houses apart. We've got piles and piles of stuff just laying all over the yard. It's bothering the heck out of me. Tomorrow Missy is supposed to come and help go through everything. What any of our family doesn't want she is going to take to the storage house that has been set up on their farm road. Families can come and pick out whatever it is that they need but they can't make a mess and they are expected to donate to the supplies when they run across something they can't use. I think it is a fine idea; I'm just not sure how long that is going to work. It's like group projects we had to do in school, someone always wound up doing the bulk of the work while everyone got equal credit.

Rand plans on staying up and guarding things. He is already so tired I don't know how he expects to be able to do that too.

 **August 8** **th** – Rand is exhausted and living on coffee and that really bothers me. I woke up a couple of times and tried to get him to let me take a turn but he only got testy. I hate this.

Had some help from people I didn't expect. Ron Harbinger, Mr. Winston, and his son JR met the Crenshaws, Clyde, and Rand up at the salvage houses today and they finished dismantling things and hauling stuff away in different directions. I kept them supplied with water and tea and apples since they are still abundant which gave me a chance to keep an eye on Rand and have a word with Brendon who told his dad.

Missy is one heck of an organizer. You could really tell she and Bill used to work in supply and requisition as they know just how to organize things and what is likely to be the most useful and what can be bundled up together and put into a "miscellaneous" or "junk" pile. There were tarps laid out and she went over everything that was left in the houses. I didn't see anything Rand or I needed or wanted but she insisted on bringing a few things over to our place anyway. Some of it was good jewelry and stuff like that and she said if I didn't want it then to bury it and forget about it like treasure, there might come a day when it would come in handy. I can't imagine it but I asked Rand to do just that. It is wrapped up and in an empty can and it is sitting in the back side of the ammo cubbyhole. It bothers me a little knowing it is there so I hope I can forget about it like she suggested.

In the afternoon Rand asked me to stay home and keep an eye on things while the boys ran water back and forth for me. Some other people, including some of Momma O's family and some of the men from Mr. Henderson's ranch, came and the job went even faster. By late afternoon there wasn't anything left of those houses but their foundations. After everyone left to go home but before full dark Rand took me up there and it was so eerie that I shivered.

We don't have any more houses close enough to worry about new neighbor problems anymore, not unless the relocation teams have people set up in tents or put some type of trailer on the various pieces of land for them. Mr. Henderson wants to organize more of these work days, maybe one or two a week for those that need building supplies or what have you.

Our yard is driving me crazy. The piles didn't go away they've only gotten worse and more of them. Rand promises that he'll put things to good use as quickly as he can but I have my doubts. He has a bunch of windows that he told me he wants to build cold frames out of. I had to look that up but basically they are mini green houses where you can grow things in the cold off seasons or get plants started early to get a leg up on planting cycles. He also wants to build a greenhouse and at least two more drying contraptions and a solar cooker as well. I don't know when we are supposed to have all the time for these projects. I'm so busy I can barely breathe.

I'm canning and drying, trying to clean around all the mess, trying to catch up with laundry (I don't have that many spare work clothes), I'm watching the chickens to see if they are going to hatch the eggs they are sitting on, Lou gets lonesome if I don't pay some attention to him every day … and so does Rand for that matter, I cook two and three meals a day, working in the garden, and the list could go on and on. I feel like I need a vacation just to catch up on the things I need to do but a vacation wouldn't do anything but put me more behind.

 **August 9** **th** \- Today Rand put together the potbellied cook stove and if things work out then tomorrow I'm going to try canning whatever Rand brings back from hunting. This couldn't come at a worse time. I have so much to do. I know he wants to get some meat in before things get hunted over. I understand that, but there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to do everything.

Mr. Henderson came by to check on us and asked if we'd had any trouble overnight. We hadn't noticed anything new but he said he'd seen signs in some of the other abandoned houses in the area that the vandal(s) had been at work. We can't afford too many more fires like the one we had. It wouldn't take much for one to get out of control if it happens in the right place at the wrong time. I try and not think of that too much.

I'm so tired I can't even see straight to write anything else. All I can say is work, work, work.

 **August 10** **th** – Alicia with Melly and her little boy (everyone calls him Roo but I don't know what his real name is) came over and brought two portable wood stoves that Bill scavenged from someplace and we pressure canned like crazy. Roo doesn't call me Kiri but "truck lady" which I think is just too cute although I don't know about the lady part. I'm glad that Alicia was there to go over the how-to's. Now that I've done it a couple of times with Alicia who's been doing it most of her life I feel much better and for sure I'm going to be able to can vegetables when they start coming in.

It wasn't even daylight when they showed up but I was up and had coffee for those that wanted it … Rand says it isn't half bad and it is strong enough to keep him awake for two days if he needs to. I'm not sure that was the effect that I was going for but at least he said it was drinkable.

The guys went off while we put the portable stoves together. The tops of them were bigger than the potbellied stove. I like not having to bend over with the pot belly but it doesn't have much surface space so I don't think I'll be giving up my fire pits any time soon.

The guys bagged two deer, they could have gotten more but we were barely able to keep up with the two. If it was cooler maybe but in the heat we had it was really difficult. Thank goodness for the extra stove top and pressure canners. We were able to have four going at a time and one of them was this really mammoth thing that was Alicia's and it held 32 pints or 19 quarts at a time. We got about seventy-five pounds of meat from each deer. The good meat we cut into stewing chunks and raw packed … that's putting cubed meat and a teaspoon of salt per quart jar and then pressure canning it from there … no extra liquid necessary as it makes its own. The less nice pieces Alicia showed us how to grind up and make "ground venison" which we then browned and canned that way. She said when it was cooler that we would grind some up to make sausage from but it required cold weather since the meat was going to have to set up for a while.

We got forty quarts of meat off of those two deer. I couldn't believe it. The meat cooked down in the pressure cooking but one quart is still way more than enough for Rand and I to make one or two meals out of a quart. We also canned fifteen pints of squirrel. The guys cleared out some of the local population to keep them out of our garden. The squirrel had to soak in salt water for an hour before we could can it but that's OK, it gave us time to finish the venison. We split the meat in fourths as we are canning for Missy and Bill as well.

I am so proud of those jars it is silly. I wish I had a camera to take pictures with but then how would I develop them? I guess this journal will have to make do for all my memories. As much canning as we did, ten quarts of venison and five quarts of squirrel isn't much meat. Rand says that we'll get two shoulders and two hams, sausage, ribs, and some other stuff from the hog at butchering time and then we'll also have all of that beef to take care of too. That makes me worried that I won't have enough jars but Rand reminded me of all those jars we found in that barn but then I reminded him that jars without lids aren't much good. We then got on the subject of how many jars and how many lids we have left. I told him hundreds of jars between what Momma had and what we've found. I'll use the antique jars for storing dried food and I can re-use lids for that, I'll just need to mark the lids in some way … like scratch an "X" on them on something. But unused lids are another matter.

We've found a few boxes of twelve here in there in our salvaging; I think it was a dozen boxes of them off the top of my head. That's 144 lids some of which are regular and some are wide-mouth. We can add that to the case of regular and case of wide-mouth lids my parents had stored here … a case lot is 720 lids. I know that sounds like an awful lot and I thought it would last forever but trying to preserve all of our food that way is changing my mind real fast especially when you think about all the pounds of meat that Rand wants to preserve. Alicia's parents also had jars and lids by the case full so between the two of us we should be able to have two years worth of canning jar lids if we don't get silly. Alicia and I had already worked the numbers out between us and it is going to be a stretch but we might be able to get them to last three years and don't have to cover any more families and do a whole lot more drying.

We might not have any choice but to start drying the fruit and such if we can't find a source for sugar and honey. I think you can preserve food using cane syrup but I wouldn't even begin to guess how except to experiment and we can't afford to waste the food right now.

Then Rand and I got back to trying to figure out how many jars we would need to can all the pork and beef he figured we'd get and when I turned to ask him to remind me about pounds and stuff he was dead hard asleep. I pulled a sheet over him and went around checking the house before shutting everything down for the night. Rand had already taken care of the animals so I didn't have to do that. I had two pots that I had to finish drying and putting away where we had browned the ground venison and then I came upstairs and started writing in my journal.

I'll be honest, I don't think I'll be eating meat for a few days. Pour Alicia had to keep going off in the bushes and puking. Having a baby doesn't seem all that great though Alicia insists that it is wonderful. Brendon is a little freaked out now that reality has set in but I think they'll be OK. I was reading something in one of my mom's natural health books about using a calendar and keeping track of dates to trying and not get pregnant. Sounds like it could get a little complicated and a whole lot easy to mess up but I'm not ready for babies, not at all. I've left the book open and the page marked on top of the stack of books that Rand usually looks through every night. Maybe he'll see it and say something and we can talk about it.


	42. Chapter 41

Chapter 41

 **August 16** **th** – I've been so busy during the day and so tired at night I haven't had time to do much more than add stuff to the inventory and then fall asleep. The only reason I have time to write now is that I stepped in some type of animal hole and wrenched the heck out of my ankle. Rand won't be home for hours yet and I don't know what he is going to say. He asked me to stay near the house but I was looking for Fraidy after hearing some dogs close enough that they had to be on our property.

Well they were and I got treed. Lucky for me I hadn't left the house unarmed and after I shot the most vicious of the pack they ran off. The three I shot are still out there; I just didn't feel able to dig a hole to bury them. I was shaky and walking home I wasn't paying too much attention where I was going and that's all it took. Man, I finally start to get rid of the nasty bruise from that stump and I get wrecked up from a hole. I think the land might be out for blood at this point.

By the time I hobbled home everything from my knee down was throbbing. I took the shoe off and my foot has swollen up like a balloon. I'm soaking it now and it looks and feels a little better. Fraidy and Woofer are sitting here looking at me like, "You humans are only about halfway smart. We hid in the barn and there you are going out and getting hurt."

Woofer … he's a dog that just sort of showed up this past Sunday morning. I was cooking breakfast and going over what we planned to work on … planning, not manual labor, and there was no church … when I hear this whine from over towards the orchard. I thought maybe I was hearing things when it didn't happen again and then the grass out there moved. Two eyes and ears popped out of the bushes and then pulled back in once it saw I had seen it.

The next time two eyes, two ears and a nose came out but as soon as I would turn my head it would hide again. It became a game for me to see how close the dog … turned out he is practically just a puppy … would come before taking off into the bushes again. It came within ten feet of where I was but wouldn't come any closer and just laid there and looked at me. His ears are huge and stand straight up and it has this long face with these eyes that seem to say what the poor thing is feeling.

Rand came out the door suddenly and you could tell the poor thing wanted to run away but all of a sudden it got between me and Rand and leaned against me with its face turned towards Rand. But I could feel it pushing me. It was either take a step back or fall backwards and he kept doing that.

Rand said, "Tell him it's OK and calm him down. That some puppy power he's got."

Rand is so cool. It didn't take long for Rand to have Woofer eating out of his hand … literally. Fraidy was pretty cool too. So long as Woofer vacates any place that Fraidy calls hers then she doesn't mind. She does mind the tongue baths that Woofer tries to give her and will only put up with it for a few minutes. All she really did in the beginning after making sure Woofer knew who was boss around here was looking at me as if to say, "I suppose if you have to adopt it go ahead."

Woofer is skittish when he hears other dogs or coyotes … Rand said he was probably put on the menu a few times because of his size and age … loves Fraidy, but is scared absolutely to death of Pretty Boy and the hens. He'll go all the way around the other side of the yard to avoid getting near them. We watched him try and climb the ladder to the loft when Pretty Boy started strutting towards him on Monday. I hope some of that wears off.

He's name really is Woofer, it says so on his tag. We worked it out and he has his rabies shots which is really good and is probably about six months old. Doesn't looked fixed which is probably why some of the bigger dogs thought he was a threat. He's house broken which is really good; and he knows how to fetch, sit, lay, shake hands, and roll over too. Rand thinks with proper feeding he'll probably get to be a fifty pound dog and at the rate he goes he'll be all muscle. Sometimes he just likes to run. You should see him light out after a squirrel … and catch the thing before it can skinny up a tree. This morning he and Fraidy tag teamed a squirrel and I watched them carry it off into the bushes and eat it. I would have been grossed out by that not too long ago, now I'm just grateful that they can feed themselves which means less work for me.

Rand built a second solar dehydrator with help from Mick and Tommy only this one has two more trays that the other one and they are bigger too. I still manage to keep twelve trays (five from the first and seven from the second) going every day.

Rand is over at his uncle's place now helping to break ground on what is hopefully going to be a good sized garden. Yesterday he went over to Momma O's and he and Paul enlarged their garden. Hatchet is getting bent out of shape that Rand isn't riding him more but he isn't so nasty with me as he used to be. Used to be that I could only be around him if Rand was right there but I've been giving him a slice of apple if he lets me brush him; we've come to an agreement that he doesn't try and bite and Rand won't make dog food out of him.

I don't know if I've said it right out loud but I like being married. I don't think I would if it wasn't to Rand but since it is him I really like being married. But there is a lot of work to it that I'm only figuring out in bits and pieces. For instance, I never realized you could be angry and worried at the same time and still like someone so much you just want to hit them for doing something stupid. Rand made me feel like that when he was installing the block and tackle thingy onto the barn so that he could life stuff up to the loft instead of having to take it up the ladder.

Yesterday I heard a bang out in the barn. I thought one of the animals had kicked the wall again expcept all three of them were in the corral. I walked in real careful and saw the ladder on the floor. "Uh, Babe … could you put that ladder back up here?" Rand was swinging from the rafters like a monkey. And when he got down is was ha, ha, ha … almost fell that time. That time?! Apparently the ladder that he was using wasn't quite as long as he needed and he'd already kicked it over a couple of times and had to climb down and put it back up. Ooooooo I could have just … well, I don't know what I could have done but for sure I was upset. Guys … I'm convinced that sometimes they just don't get it. If anything had happened to him I don't know what I would do. It's bad enough that we have a bunch of crazies going around setting things on fire as some kind of stupid initiation to a new gang that has formed.

Some kids got caught; they are not from Suwannee County but from Columbia where Lake City is. Mr. Henderson packed them into a wagon and then turned them over to the military at the relocation camp. This was for more than one reason. In addition to getting the kids (when I called them that Mr. Henderson wanted to know when I had suddenly gotten so old) off his hands and it gave him a legitimate reason for being able to check the place out.

First off he says it looks like an old WW2 era internment camp only with canvas sided tents. I remember seeing pictures of those in my American History textbook. Mr. Henderson said they are set up in row upon row behind tall fences and razor wire. There were lines of people all over the place but they were all inside the fence and the gates of the fence was closed and guarded by some pretty heavy duty looking guns. He spit out the names and numbers of the guns but that didn't make any difference to me, all I needed to know is that for some reason they find it important to keep those people inside and are willing to shoot to do it. And these are the people they want to spread out around here? People that they think need to be locked up? If I think that you know other people are going to think the same thing.

Mr. Henderson went on to say the people looked pretty bad … sick or starved or something along those lines. He said he won't be making any trips back any time soon. They weren't quite set up and he's worried if they had been they might have "requisitioned" his horses and wagon … possibly him and his men too … for work in and around the camp.

Rand and Mr. Henderson have been talking and they're concerned that the power poles and lines will lead people back to places that they might not otherwise find. Rand is also worried that the power poles will get in the way of him being able to plow and work the field he is creating in the easement. Tomorrow they are going to start taking down the poles. They're wooden so it shouldn't be any more hard than chopping down a tree, but problem is going to come in figuring how or even if the part of the pole that is stuck down in the ground will come up.

For some reason this bothers me and I said so to Rand. He said that it was probably because it was a sign that things aren't going to be getting better any time in the near future. The lines are down in lots of places because of that storm that took down Fraidy's tree. Taking down the lines does seem kind of final. When they come down I have to accept that it will be a long while before we see electricity again – those little switches won't work, the light won't come on in the frig, the microwave won't beep, the washer and dryer won't work. Acceptance. That is what we are doing day in and day out but this seems like a whole bunch of it to do at once.

Guess I need to put my pen down or Rand is going to come home hungry and there won't be anything to eat. He's always hungry. Thank goodness I seem to have a talent for making things grow and then cooking them … hey, maybe I inherited something from Momma after all.

 **August 17** **th** – Rand wasn't near as upset as I was worried he was going to be. He says he knows he can't keep me locked up like he'd like to so that I would be safe but he said he was very proud of me for not "running off unarmed." I guess that is something to feel good about, that he trusts me to use sense. I think I'm getting used to him spelling everything out … it's just his way of making sure he gets things right and covers everything he means to, not necessarily that he thinks I don't know anything or don't know how to use commonsense.

About the only constructive thing I can claim to have done today is plant a couple of rows of soybeans. After that my ankle was swollen again and I had to get off of it. I've had to do most of my canning today from a chair. Thank goodness that Alicia and Charlene came over while the guys sawed the down the power poles.

First they did them on the other side of US90, back to where the lines run into a junction. By starting at that point they can make the fact that we've cut the poles down less obvious. Lots of people are helping but few of them for no reason. They want the wood … for fire wood for building materials for whatever. Rand and others have tried to warn them not to burn the wood inside since it is treated but I have a feeling most people weren't listening to them. The real "country folk" did but the "new country" people don't seem to want to believe it and instead think people are just trying to keep the wood for themselves.

The reason I mention "real country" and "new country" is because I heard Uncle George and Momma O talking about it. It seems back in the late '00s a lot of people moved out of south Florida and into the "country" to get away from the cost of living down there and to get away from the memories of the bad hurricane seasons that had driven up insurance costs and things like that. They were playing at being "country" but were still very much city people in their skills … or lack of … and expectations and attitudes. The "new country" people also include the children of the "real country" people that live here but never learned the skills that their parents took for granted. The "real country" people are adjusting a lot better by and large, according to Uncle George, than the "new country" people are.

I don't know if I consider myself "real country" or not. My parents were even though we lived in the city. I learned a lot from them and I'm learning more every day from their legacy of notes and stuff. Rand who was trying to get out of being "real country" has returned to what he learned when he came to live with his uncle. Every once in a while I catch him wishing for the way things might have been but then he looks at me and grins and says, "Nah! I think I like things the way they are turning out even better." When he says that it always tickles my stomach and makes it go all fluttery. I'm not sure I know how to even think of things being any different any more. I sure won't give up Rand just to go back and make things a little easier. I think my parents would have liked Rand … I'm not so sure they would approve of how fast we've had to move, I'm absolutely sure Daddy would have had a thing or three to say about it. But things are the way they are … and I'm finding myself happier about that every day.

 **August 18** **th** – Oh my gosh! We just got the worst news about an hour and a half ago. I hadn't planned on doing anything but going to bed early since tomorrow is a full day of laundry (Rand can seriously stink up some clothes) but Hoss galloped up and was spreading the news to be on the lookout for people maybe heading this way or even for fires.

When the wind blows just right you can hear the sounds of some kind of fighting going on and we've heard helicopters passing overhead following US90 towards Lake City. You know it must be bad if we can hear it all the way from Lake City, either that or its already moved out into the countryside and if that's the case we really are in trouble.

Mr. Henderson heard on the radio that the relocation camp erupted in some kind of violence after cases of some type of sickness began killing people. That's all we know right now. We are double checking everything and locking down tight. Fraidy is up with me in the dormer room and Rand won't let me come downstairs. He and Woofer are down there prowling around the house to make sure nothing looks or sounds out of place. We locked all the animals in the barn and put the roll downs on them which is something we rarely do lately.

 **August 20** **th** – I told Rand I was going stir crazy and that if he didn't let me get out of the house I was going to go nuts. He followed me around while I checked on the garden and watered what needed watering and while I pulled the ripe fruit and brought it into the summer kitchen to try and do something with. The apples will keep as long as they don't get too hot and most of the rest of the fruit has already been picked clean except for what we can eat fresh every day.

The house is just nasty from being so muggy and closed up. Rand finally laughed after being so stressed for over twenty-four hours when I strung line all over the place and tried to dry out the under things and t-shirts that I'd finally had to wash because I couldn't stand them anymore.

Mitch came by late in the afternoon and said there was still fighting in and around Lake City and that news of the riot there had sparked trouble at the Jacksonville and Tallahassee RCs (relocation centers). Not apparently as bad as what has happened at the Lake City RC but bad enough. I hope this makes them reconsider their stupid resettlement plans. That would be a load off of everyone's mind I think.

 **August 22** **nd** – Got word from Pastor Ken that Jared Harbinger had a fatal stroke. After the incident at the church service Ron had moved him and Julia into the apartment over the garage which was where he had lived before things went crazy. He realized that his aunts were just too much for Julia to deal with. She was sick constantly … really sick, not just sick trying to get sympathy and attention … and Pastor Ken said it was probably from the stress. Ol' Jared had started acting even odder after that and then had started losing his balance and lost the strength on one side of his body. Pastor Ken diagnosed another stroke or series of them. But what capped it off was when he went after Julia and his own mother with a butcher knife. Julia actually saved Mrs. Harbinger by being brave enough to lock Jared in a downstairs bathroom after she had seen the woman come out of her house screaming for help. After she did that she ran to get Ron. Julia collapsed while she was in the middle of telling him what had happened. She's OK but she's on bed rest for at least another week just to be on the safe side. Ron found his father collapsed in the bathroom and his grandmother only mildly better off and being tended by his aunts. Long and the sort of it is that Jared suffered a fatal stroke during the night and even his own mother says that it was a blessing.

Also got word that Janet is sick again with some kind of fever. They had some beggars come around and come straight up to the house where she was sitting on the porch shelling beans. Uncle George is convinced that the beggars had something contagious and that she caught it because of her weakened immune system. I sent over some blackberry shrub that I hope she'll be able to drink while she has a fever. Dear Lord, please don't let anything happen to Janet because that will destroy Uncle George.

 **August 25** **th** – There was a man in the orchard when I went out there a little while ago. I'm going to have a horrible black eye but nothing worse I don't think. Mitch Peters had come by and was drinking coffee with Rand on the porch when they heard me scream. The man hit me in the side of his head with his fist and I haven't felt very good since. I thought maybe writing it down would help but it hasn't. I think I'm just going to lie down for a little while.


	43. Chapter 42

Chapter 42

 **August 27** **th** – Complacency. That's what Rand is calling it. I think maybe it is more like wishful thinking. When really big things happen you kind of want to think that you've taken care of the worst of the worst problems and that you can take it easier for a while. The problem with that sort of thinking these days is that it will get you hurt, dead, or worse. And trust me, from a female's point of view this is "worse." Being dead is easy, living through some of the things I hear Mitch telling Rand that he's heard on the radio would definitely fit into the "worse" category.

Getting married was such a huge event in my life. In a couple of days we will have been married a whole month. It seems like it can't be but at the same time it feels like forever in a good way. Rand likes it when I say that last part. We both thought that getting married would fix the worst of our problems … that the land would be ours and we could then focus all of our time and energies fixing it up and just being together with no one to get in the way.

But that isn't true. That is so totally not true. Every day things seem to get a little worse and a little worse. Oh, not between Rand and I, if anything that just keeps getting better in lots of different ways. It's the outside world that keeps trying to get in the way of our happily ever after.

The riot at the RC was just the start, or the latest part of the start. Rand said that what is occurring now is actually a result of stuff that started long before the pandemic began, the pandemic just kind of was the straw that broke the camel's back. The beggars that came by Uncle George's is a symptom of "the sickness." That's what Rand and I have started calling it … a sickness, decay, something like that. Rand lets his college education show every once in a while and calls it "the breaking down of social order and modern society as a whole."

Rand will also go off on a tear when he talks about something he calls the entitlement mentality. People are starving and they'll steal rather than ask for honest work for honest pay. They think they are somehow entitled to what they are stealing because it's "that or death." Being hard up or even close to death doesn't give you the right to steal … it just means you have more reason to work harder and smarter.

Mr. Henderson is relaying news from abroad … anything out of our general area is "abroad" these days. Lots of real sicknesses from lack of hygiene and poor nutrition. Lots of fighting. Gang violence was very bad for a while but with the fuel and food shortages it isn't just the traditional gangs anymore, it's people just banding together to go after other people or groups they think have something more than they do and that's the only justification they seem to need.

The guy in the orchard was the last straw for Rand. He says that we've both been trying to live what he calls an "idyll" but we are going to have to go back to the way things were before. He was pretty upset and was ranting while he was cleaning up my face from where the guy hit me. I was discombobulated and I thought he was talking about leaving because I had done something wrong. That's when he and Mitch realized something was wrong with me. I don't remember much but feeling woozy and being confused and upset and being scared that Rand was leaving. I kind of remember crying and begging him not to but it's real fuzzy. Mitch rode off to find Pastor Ken and Rand said I was talking but not much of it was making any kind of sense.

Rand got me calmed down before Pastor Ken arrived and when he checked me over he diagnosed a concussion from where the guy punched me in the side of the head. I had a hematoma and he had to lance it a little because it was causing so much pressure and pain. I was lucky it was between my scalp and my skull and not between my skull and my brain. Things were a mess for a day or so but I'm feeling much better now, just still feeling pretty tired and stressed.

The only good news we've gotten is that Janet is on the mend except now Tommy has it and if Tommy gets it you can pretty well guarantee that Mick is going to come down with it. Uncle George and the rest of them are adding some height to their existing fence that faces the main road and they are adding a more heavy duty gate that will remain closed and locked from now on even though that will be a big inconvenience. Rand is talking about putting deer fencing … that tall stuff that is about eight feet high … around our home site. I don't know where he plans on getting that but he says he has a source and then shuts up and won't say any more about it. He and Mitch have been talking about it and how it could be pulled off without any more work than necessary.

I told Rand I didn't want to live behind gates like in a prison but he's still pretty upset that someone got that close to the house. Woofer had even been acting weird but Rand didn't catch the signals until I screamed. He and Mitch said Woofer took off so fast he was like greased lightning. I don't remember anything but something knocking the man off of me but Rand said Woofer had the guy by the back of the neck and was shaking him like a rag doll. Woofer is barely much more than a puppy but he broke the guy's neck. Rand had to make him let go and then the dog wouldn't let anyone but Rand near me. I remember telling Woofer Mitch was a friend several times before he would stop raising his hackles whenever Mitch tried to help Rand get me into the house.

Thank goodness by the time Pastor Ken came Woofer had calmed all the way back down. Woofer may be afraid of hens and roosters but he makes one heck of an attack dog. Lucky for me that Mitch stays in radio contact with the other patrols in the area and they had just seen Pastor Ken leaving Momma O's place. Ms. DeLois had a fainting spell the other day because of the heat and trying to do too much. She's fine now but that on top of everything else is making Rand try and rap me up in a gilded cage … or something like that, I can't remember how the old saying goes and I'm too tired to try and work it out. I can't get any work done.

We heard from Pastor Ken that I'm not the only person around here that has had a run-in with strangers. People are locking everything down at night … and during the day too … as stuff is being stolen left and right. People are having their smokehouses broken into, theie barns broken into, more animals are disappearing, fruit trees are getting stripped, if they leave their houses they are coming back to find their house has been ransacked. Scary stuff. There have also been two rapes reported and one family was found shot to death in their beds.

It could be stragglers from the riot at the RC or it could be the gangbangers … though no motorcycles have been seen or heard in quite a while … or it could even be locals gone bad. Until the person (or persons) doing this stuff get caught we won't know for sure so we have to guard against everything.

Rand is all over me about knowing how to use all the guns we have. I had gotten used to the Hi-Point because I carried it before Rand knew about the other guns but after I showed him I started using the Mark III because it used the same bullets as the Jr. Rifle I carry and because I just liked it better. Now he is on me about carrying the Smith & Wesson one and I don't like it at all … it has more kick that the stinking Hi-Point did and feels even bigger in my hand. I'm trying not to be crabby but I'm a better shot with the Mark III. Rand said that I might be a better shot with the Mark III but even if I only get a body shot the Smith & Wesson will do more damage. I asked him then why didn't he carry it and he gave me "the" look. That's the thing about being married, we may be partners but sometimes there can only be one cook.

Of course he likes his Ruger P95 and when I asked him why one time he said it was because he could always hit what he was aiming at multiple times. Uh huh … so he can pick a gun because he can hit what he is aiming at but I have to carry a gun because it makes a big hole no matter where it hits. To keep the peace I'll carry what he wants me to carry and I'll practice with it but I don't think he is going to be able to make me like it any better. And yes, I'm feeling crabby. I've got a headache.

 **August 28** **th** – I reread what I wrote yesterday and I sure was whining. My head really did hurt. Today is the first day it hasn't since the guy hit me. My eye looks horrible though. I'm so tired of looking trashy. As much trouble as I could get into before it never resulted in actual fights. I'm getting pretty tired of being on the short end of the stick.

Bill and Brendon came by and Missy was with them which lifted my spirits. She said she needed a breather from Uncle George and his fussing. She said, "I love my Daddy but he and I don't always get on. Bill and I are building a little place for ourselves on the vacant lot right next to his but that isn't good enough; he wants us right next to his house. I can't live like that and he just doesn't understand." I can see both sides of it which is kind of strange. I guess it is hypocritical to see both sides of it for Missy and only want my own way when it is me. I better watch that or it is going to get me in hot water.

It was nice having some help and company. I know she is older than I am but we understand each other. She can be a little bossy but I think she just enjoyed being out from under everyone over at the Crenshaws. I understand her need to be her own person and I don't try and tell her how she should be … and she does the same for me. She gets a little more personal that I'm comfortable with but just because she wants Rand and I to get along. I guess she's sown some wild oats of her own but she seems content to be with Bill forever now.

The only oats I want to sow are the kind that will grow more that we can eat. Sometimes I worry … but I'll never tell him … that one of these days Rand is going to wake up and rethink the whole marrying me thing. I don't like to think about it but sometimes I'll wake up in the night and I want so bad to wake him up and ask him but I never will. I have to learn to be satisfied. We get along really good and we have fun and he cares about me … the rest of that stuff only happens in fairytales and in those silly bodice-ripper paperbacks.

 **August 29** **th** – Crabapples are in as are the dessert pears. The dessert pears are a whole lot easier to eat fresh than the "sand pears" like the Hood pears that came in like gang busters. Florida pioneers named the canning pears "sand pears" because they have a gritty texture to them. Momma wrote that there is a way to avoid the grittiness but I'll have to find it again. The "grit" goes away after cooking so I'm not going to worry about it and since the dessert pears need to have something done with them now, I really don't have time to worry about it.

The crabapples are mostly being made into pectin, that's what Missy helped me with yesterday … at least when she wasn't eating them. I can't believe she would just eat them like that. They were so tart they nearly broke my pucker. You are supposed to be able to make jelly and crabapple butter with them but from the recipes that I looked at it takes more sugar than crabapple and I just don't have the luxury for that so they are all being made into pectin. The chickens like them too and I heard today by way of Clyde that the hogs got into a fight over the crabapple mush that I sent home by the bucketful with Missy yesterday. Well, at least someone likes them. I get a shiver every time I think of the one that I tried to eat.

Rand is still keeping me close to the house. This Thursday the first of the lady's get togethers is planned to be held up at that place where Laurabeth and Jonathon got married. I had to to talk him around to letting me go but he is really grumpy about it. He says that we ought to have more sense than to be trying something like that right now when things are getting out of hand and I told him it's because of that that this will be the best time to do it since we don't know if we'll be able to have any more. I told him if he let me I would just ride Lou over there and he said no that he'd take me. But I reminded him that if he went there wouldn't be anyone looking after the place and then he asked, "Are you trying to get rid of me or something?" I thought that was a really strange thing to ask and told him so. Then he asked if there were going to be any guys around and I asked him how should I know.

Later on I went back and told him that if it really bothered him so much I wouldn't go that I didn't want to upset him or ruin our peace. He looked at me funny and asked, "You really won't go if I ask you not to?" I told him that was what I had just said and then went back into the house to finish putting away jars of cooled pectin. Then he comes in and tells me, "I don't want you to not go just because I said something Kiri. If you want to go fine, but you aren't riding Lou up there by yourself, I'll take you."

Guys are sooo complicated. I still don't get … OK, maybe I do get that he worries that something could happen but the rest of it got all confusing. And what the heck did he mean by asking was I trying to get rid of him? I'd ask him but I'm afraid of starting things up again.

 **August 30** **th** – Wow! I don't know how he pulled it off but Rand didn't wake me up when he got up and I got breakfast in bed. The only time I got breakfast in bed was when I was in the hospital or sick when I was a little girl and those times don't count. He said it was a belated birthday present and to celebrate our one month anniversary.

I used to not understand how girls could get all gooshy about a guy and say "how romantic" in that sickeningly sweet tone of voice … but I sure do now. There was even a flower in a little vase on the tray. And my favorite granola and dried fruit was in a bowl and a glass of juice. It was all so sweet I want to remember this day forever.

 **September 1** **st** – I had such a good time yesterday but I sure am glad it was yesterday and not today. Someone set fire to the building during the night and Rand said its nothing but a collapsed ruin now. It makes me so mad. Why did someone have to do something so mean? What possible good could come out of something like that? And we had such high hopes of having another meeting sometime in October when the weather had cooled off some.

Well, even if the building did go up in flames the things I learned didn't. We all brought pencil and paper with us … Alicia was real smart and brought index cards. I wish I would have thought of that. On the other hand the paper let me scribble notes every which way and draw arrows and lines and diagrams of things.

One of the big things I learned is that there are other ways to preserve food rather than just by canning or drying. You can preserve things by lactic fermentation, in oil, in vinegar, with salt, with sugar, and in alcohol. Not all foods can be preserved by every method and I've got all these notes that I'm going to try and condense down into a chart of some kind.

I showed how I turned blue jeans into a skirt and how I'm cutting up really worn out blue jeans and sewing them together to make a blue jean quilt. I was also asked to explain exactly how I'm canning over an open fire and Alicia explained how to pressure can over a flame.

We did a big recipe exchange and I've got some really neat ideas to try out. I might even try sourdough bread if I can get the starter to make. If that fails I can make the easy Amish bread starter though that is mostly for sweet breads.

Julia came with Ron's two aunts and grandmother. She didn't look like herself at all. She tried to go be with her friends at first but the two aunts were right on top of her the whole time so her friends kind of drifted away. I feel sorry for her in spite of myself. I mentioned to Rand that I don't think she is very happy at all but he said she got what she was asking for … a man with land, money, and all the other stuff she thought was important. The way he said it though makes me wonder if maybe he still does care but is still hurt by what she did. I wonder what would have happened if Rand hadn't found out she had been cheating on him.

Oh boy am I tired. I had planned on writing more but it's going to have to wait for another day. I'm sore from planting more in the garden.


	44. Chapter 43

Chapter 43

 **September 2** **nd** – There … was … a … roach … in … my …. Kitchen! Argh! I am not a bug-o-phobe. I don't want to carry on a conversation with them but they don't scare me. But I sure don't want them in the house and so way on the other side of not when it comes to having them in my cooking space. Rand thinks I'm overreacting. He says, "It's Florida, there are going to be bugs." I know that … that doesn't mean I want bugs in my kitchen. I've been so irritated today but I haven't had the time or energy to do a blessed thing about it.

Yesterday I planted the next round of things into the garden. Let's see, I planted beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts (don't ask me why … yuck), cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, mustard greens, more onions, parsley, parsnips, radishes, and some weird things called burdock, arugula, chicory, and amaranth. Next month I'm going to plant some strawberries and an herb garden. Rand rolled his eyes when I asked him if he would help me create two new garden spaces but only in a kidding way … I think. I hate to ask for so much. Maybe I shouldn't have, I just did it before thinking. I planned on doing all of this by myself when I first made it up here. Maybe I should go back to being more independent. I'm still not exactly sure how all of this marriage stuff is supposed to work.

Today I didn't need much help. When I was planting I took a break and just happened to go by the dreaded grape arbor. It's so stupid to be scared of a snake that is probably more scared of me than I am of it but I don't care. I don't like snakes and I had been avoiding the grape arbor. In her notes Momma said she'd never gotten a single grape off of the grape vines so I wasn't thinking too much about it but low and behold … there were a whole bunch of grape clusters. I didn't see any nasty ones so they must have just started ripening but you can't fool around with grapes so grapes are what I canned today.

I made spiced grapes, grape conserve, grape catsup, spiced grape jelly, grape preserves, grape butter, and canned grapes like you get in fruit cocktail. I also put two trays of grapes to dry so that I could have more raisins. If I had to pick I would say that I liked the grape preserves best followed by the grape conserve. I had a little bit of conserve left over that wasn't enough to fill a jar so I saved it and we had it on some vanilla wafers for dessert tonight.

Speaking of baked goods (the vanilla wafers were the tail end of some that I had gotten way back at the work day when I first met Missy) I think I'm going to set aside one of my "days" for baking. I think I'm going to change cleaning day to Thursday and make Friday baking day. I've been going over the notes I made at the ladies' social and I think I've got all of the different suggested ways of making yeast into four basic recipes:

 **Yeast.** In the evening boil enough potatoes to make one pint when mashed very fine. Save potato water and add enough more water to make three pints, then add 1 tablespoonful salt and 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cake compressed yeast, put in the potatoes and stir well, cover and let rise over night. In the morning save 1 pint for the next baking or make fresh each time, as desired; mix stiffer with flour than with other yeast.

 **Yeast.** In the morning, boil and mash three potatoes. Add 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 tablespoonful of salt; stir well together. Pour over this mixture 1/2 pint of boiling water and stir it; then add 1/2 pint of cold water and stir that; then 1/2 cup of yeast and keep it in a warm place. When it is risen well and rounds up to the top of the dish stir it down. Do so several times during the day. Then it may be strained and put into a jar or jug, and kept in a cool place. The bread made with this may be made with milk.

 **Yeast.** For 1 Gallon of yeast, take 12 medium-size potatoes, pare and boil them until done. With the water off these, scald 3 heaping tablespoonfuls of flour, 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar, and 3 scant tablespoonfuls of salt. Mix the potatoes, mashed, with this,, then fill gallon with cold water. When cold enough, add 1 cake of magic yeast. Let stand in cool place. Take 1 pint of mixture for 1 loaf of bread.

 **Yeast.** Take 1 quart of hops, boiled, and strained, 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of salt, 1/2 cup of lard, 2 large tablespoonfuls of ginger, 4 potatoes boiled and mashed and enough yeast to raise it. Let stand over night, then mix enough flour and corn meal to make crumbly.

That doesn't include something called a Herman starter (which sounds very strange to call a food by a person's name) or the Amish bread starter. The Herman starter is more like a regular sourdough and the Amish starter is a starter but mostly for sweet breads. I'd like to try them all but that would be irresponsible since I don't know how much flour I'm going to have. Oh, I have loads of unground wheat so I suppose I could try them all but flour that I don't have to go to the trouble of me grinding myself I have less than a hundred pounds left. It seems like that would go a long way but it won't. I'm using bread to try and give Rand more carbs while he is working so hard and it seems to have helped a little bit. He is still a lot thinner than he was when I first met him and he gets really tired by the end of the day, but I don't think he is losing as much weight as he was.

I know Uncle George is fretting about this some from Alicia. Not just specifically about Rand but in general about all of his chicks. And now that both Alicia and Missy are gonna have babies he is really fretting. He doesn't want to have cull too many from his animals but he'll butcher every one of them before he sees any of his kids go hungry no matter the consequences later. I said something to Rand today and he got a little snappy saying that he knew and that he was going as fast as he could prepping the fields for the oats they want to plant this month. I sure didn't mean to come off like I was complaining; I just wanted someone to talk to about it. It feels like I'm always doing something wrong lately. Rand doesn't say anything but it just feels that way.

Sometimes I wonder … I guess there is no sense in wondering if I'm not going to ask him. I do wonder though if maybe he isn't sorry he married me sometimes. I made really good grades in school and all of my classes were college level because of the IB program but still, I can't seem to get my mouth and brain working together so that I sound like I'm halfway as smart as they used to claim I was. On some days it just doesn't seem like I can find anything that we can talk about. It used to not be this hard. I wonder what I'm doing so wrong?

 **September 3** **rd** – I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. The day started out pretty good. We got up and I fixed doctored up grits with sausage TVP and cheese mixed in. We made it to the church service on time and I went to say hello to Momma O and take her our contribution to the "Stone Soup" that was today's fellowship theme. I had a bunch bouillon so I took a cupful and some mixed dried veggies to toss in there.

Then we went and sat with the Crenshaws who were all there except for Bill and Missy who had volunteered to stay home and watch the place. Everyone was a little uncomfortable because a couple of soldiers from the RC had asked if it was alright if they came to services since their Chaplain had died during the riot and hadn't been replaced yet. I didn't pay them too much attention.

After the service Rand just left and went to talk to Mitch, Mr. Henderson and some other men and I was at loose ends. The rest of the Crenshaws seem to be talking to people they knew and I didn't want to intrude. I was about to go see if Momma O needed some help when I heard from behind me, "Kiri?"

I turned around and it took me a second to recognize him with his hair cut so short and in uniform. "Ram?"

"I thought I was seeing things but then I remembered you guys had a place up this way. Are you aunt and uncle here?"

Ram was several years older than me and had been one of the foster boys that lived with Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie when I first came to live with them. He was one of the few that didn't have problems … he was there because he couldn't seem to stay out of trouble. It didn't take us long to get caught up.

"Did you go to live with your grandmother?"

"Yeah, but Abuela died and my uncle didn't really want to support me. He thought I was leading his sons into trouble and to be honest I was. I got caught driving for some guys that were real trouble and the judge gave me the choice of jail time or joining the military. I picked the military and despite everything it has been the best thing for me. But, I can't believe you said you are married. You're only … what … sixteen?"

"Seventeen. Things are … different from the way I expected them to be but like you, I'm not sorry I made the decision I did. Rand is like the best friend I've ever had. I don't know where I'd be without him."

"Friend? What happened to the spitfire that threatened Cal Erickson with a baseball bat if she ever caught him peeking into your bedroom again?"

"You would remember that. Ram, I like who I am now better than who I was then. Some of it is just life but some of it is Rand. I don't know how to explain it or what to call it. It just is."

"Yeah. I wish you could meet Sherri, same thing for me. I don't know what she sees in me most of the time."

"Sherri?"

"Yeah, look … for old time sake, could you introduce me to the Pastor? He was nice enough to not mind us just showing up and I'd like to say thank you but don't want him to feel like we're all pouncing on him. We're not allowed to go anywhere not in uniform and I don't want to set people off around here thinking we're bothering the preacher."

"Sure. Pastor Ken is pretty cool. And I don't think you could intimidate him. He's seen a lot. And if you are going to be around for any amount of time you'll want to meet Mr. Henderson and Judge Walker too. Oh yeah, and Momma O … you'll definitely need to be introduced to Momma O."

"Uh … "

Before he could go all shy boy on me I drug him over to Pastor Ken who called over the Judge and Mr. Henderson.

"Y'all, this is Ram Diaz …Ramiro Diaz actually, but we always called him Ram. Ram why don't you introduce your friends around and I'll go see if Momma O needs anything."

"Wha … ?!"

"Paybacks Ram, paybacks. As I recall Cal wasn't the only one I was upset with that particular day."

I left Ram standing there with his mouth hanging open and his friends laughing. The Live Oak men joined in as soon as they had the joke explained to him. I went over to Momma O to fill her in. She couldn't get around as well as she used to and I know she hates not knowing what is going on. She asked me all I knew about Ram and I told her; no reason not to. I didn't have a clue about Ram's friends but I figured she'd pin someone else down for the information later.

I looked around for Rand and saw him over by the wagon so I went over to see if we needed to leave but when I got there I wish I hadn't.

"Rand do we … "

"Who was that?"

"Who was … ? Oh, Ram Diaz. Crazy meeting someone I haven't thought about in a long time. I introduced him to Pastor Ken, Mr. Hender …"

"Yeah, I saw. What did he want?"

"Huh? Just to say hello and ask for an introduction to Pastor Ken. Where did you go? I wanted you to meet … "

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Stop answering my questions with a question."

"I'm … I'm sorry. I just …"

"Yeah, whatever. Are you ready to go or do you want to hang out with your friend?"

"Rand … "

"Yes or no."

"I'm ready if you are, just let me go tell Alicia … "

"I already told everyone goodbye. If you're going just get in the wagon."

I still don't know what I did. I tried to ask Rand a couple of times what was wrong and he just said, "Nothing." But the way he said nothing meant that it was something and that I must be blind not to see it. I think maybe he is embarrassed of me.

 **September 4** **th** – I am so sick of plums I can't stand it. If I wasn't afraid that the one plum that I didn't can was the one plum that we needed I'd give every last one of them to the chickens.

I'd give these stupid chestnuts to the chickens too if they would eat them. Instead I sent them by the bucketful back with Uncle George for the pigs. The only way Momma talked about preserving chestnuts is in the refrigerator or freezer. I found in one of Daddy's files though how to can them. I hadn't to roast them on a sheet pan and then while they were still hot put them in pint jars and pressure can them and it was different from how you usually do other stuff … only five pounds of pressure for ten minutes. I did two canner loads and then just didn't feel like doing any more. Maybe tomorrow.

Or maybe not. Right now I don't feel like doing much of anything. Rand seemed to get better after he saw Uncle George and Mr. Henderson after lunch but I just don't care very much for some reason. I'm tired and I've got a headache again and I'm going to be and maybe I'll get up tomorrow and maybe I won't.

 **September 5** **th** – I feel lousy. I was only grouching when I said I might not get up but I can't seem to …


	45. Chapter 44

Chapter 44

 **September 8** **th** – I'm finally getting back on my feet and feeling human only now Rand is sick. Mr. Henderson came by today and said about half his men and their families are still down or going down. I was glad that Mr. Henderson came by because I could finally tell someone that not only was Rand sick but I had Pastor Ken here and sick as well.

When I told him that Mr. Henderson looked relieved, "Well thank God we know where he is at. Everyone had started to believe the worst." He showed me what I needed to do for Hatchet and the mules and moved a feed sack where I could get to it more easily. I worried about him being sick with it but he said that he'd been a little off for about twenty-four hours but that's all. He's pretty sure that it was the church service where we all picked it up at. Grouching in his usual fashion, "Probably those blasted, snotty-nosed Bradford kids sneezing on everything. Allergies my Aunt Fanny's fanny. Martha Bradford just didn't want to have to stay home by herself with 'em again while that next to useless husband of hers got into who knows what."

I started feeling bad on Monday night but didn't really realize what it was. I put it down to being upset and my monthlies being late - stress does that to me real easy - but by Tuesday morning though I just didn't feel good at all. I tried to get around but at lunch time I had trouble even getting out to the barn to tell Rand that his food was ready. Whatever this is it isn't the flu. I've had the flu twice and this doesn't have the aches and pains like the flu did.

Pastor Ken is on the mend, just really tired, and when he is awake he likes to talk. One of the things he has said is that this is just some kind of fast moving virus and it has hit everyone so hard because of the physical stress we are all under. Poor nutrition, skimping on the personal hygiene, all the extra physical labor … you name it and we were sitting ducks.

I told Rand I was going to sit down for a while and didn't get anything but a, "Yeah, OK." That kind of hurt my feelings but he looked pretty hang dog, like he was feeling bad about something. I just didn't really feel like talking so I went back inside and was going to write a little bit in my journal but I don't know what happened, The next thing I remember Rand was lifting me up and taking off my clothes and I was upset by that because it made me cold. I know he was talking to me but I was so tired I couldn't figure it out so I gave up and went back to sleep.

I woke up again the next day … that would have been Wednesday … with Rand still dressed but asleep and laying across the bed all funny. I had to get up for nature's reasons but nothing wanted to work right. I had to wrap myself in the sheet because I couldn't find my clothes and didn't know where my nightgown had got to. I was coming out of the bathroom after working my way downstairs and Rand was standing so close the pocket door when it opened that he scared me to pieces and I just started to cry for some stupid reason. He was talking at me again but all I remember is wanting to lie down and go back to sleep.

I woke during the night to hear two people talking and coughing. I was in my parents' bed and Rand must have put a nightgown on me. The house was dark and I stubbed my toe on the door frame trying to find my way out. Finally I saw the glow of one of the lamps in the great room and it was Pastor Ken and Rand. Both of them wobbled when they stood up when they saw me and it took a couple of minutes for my brain cells to connect but I finally realized they were getting sick too.

Rand kept on asking me if I was all right and touching my face and saying that he had some broth in the carafe if I was hungry. I kept telling him I was fine but he didn't seem to want to listen to that. Finally everyone just turned in for the rest of the night.

When I woke the next morning … yesterday … both of them were burning up with fever. I wasn't feeling so hot myself but I couldn't just do nothing so I managed to force a couple of acetaminophen tablets down their throats with some water without choking them to death; dealing with the sick kids at the warehouse gave me skills I hope I don't have to use too often in this life. That took most of my energy but then I realized that the animals hadn't been taken care of.

Woofer and Fraidy were both on the porch when I finally managed to get the doors opened and nearly knocked me down they were so happy to see me. Woofer did his silly chasing his tail thing and Fraidy twined between my legs and if I hadn't grabbed the front porch pillar I would have flat out hit the ground. I got lucky and the barn doors were closed but the roll downs weren't. I don't think I could have wound them up enough to get anyone of them out except the birds maybe. I finally got the doors unbolted and open and Pretty Boy came out and then the hens came out … and the broody hen must have finally managed to hatch what she was sitting on because there were two little chicks. Mother Hen is so funny … she strutted around worse that Pretty Boy ever had she was so proud of what she had done. I made sure their run was open in case they felt like going in there and tossed some millet and some cracked corn in there for good measure since I didn't know how long since they had been fed.

Hatchet obeyed me for once and let me lead him and the mules out to the corral. I think it was when I told him that if he wanted some water he would need to go to the corral. Pumping water and bringing it around by the bucketful from the summer kitchen was too much for me so I cracked into one of the rain barrels to water all of the animals. It's amazing how much they will drink on a hot day. Frankly I wanted to stand there and slurp from the trough too by the time I got it filled.

I went back inside and checked on Rand and Pastor Ken and they were sleeping. I forced some more water down their throats … I don't think they appreciated it too much at the time as they wore as much as they drank … and then went in search of the broth that I remembered Rand telling me about last night. It was lukewarm but frankly I didn't care because suddenly I was very hungry. I took a pot of water and set it on the pot belly and got a fire going. And then I spotted the garden and nearly had a panic attack. I limped out there and sure enough, some of the plants looked like if they didn't get a drink of water quick they were done for.

I couldn't carry as much water as I was normally able to so it took twice as long to get everything watered but the plants perked up real fast so I knew they hadn't been as bad off as I had feared. Then I had to limp back to the stove to save the pot from boiling dry. I added more water and sat for a moment trying to think what else I needed to do. The water had just boiled and I was trying to work through my fuzzy brain when Rand stumbled out of the house. He looked bad enough to scare me and it took what little bit of energy I had left to get him back inside and tucked in bed.

Pastor Ken had woke up too so I gave him more water, more pills and practically begged him to stay put because I couldn't manage him and Rand wandering loose at the same time. "I think I'll take you up on that if you don't mind," is all he said and went back to sleep.

I sat on the front porch swing and dozed. I woke up when Woofer growled at something but I never could figure out what it was. The rest of the day pretty much went like that and I was very grateful for the sun to start lowering. I put the animals up with Woofer's help. Hatchet was in a mood. I expect whatever had made Woofer growl set him off too. Something had spooked me and I dropped the rolldowns on the barn doors just to be on the safe side and locked them too with the hasp locks that get used even less that the rolldowns do.

I woke up the next morning to find that one of the rain barrels had had a hole punched in it and a couple of the other ones had been deliberately turned over. I was glad whoever it was hadn't done more damage or hadn't been able to get to any more of our stuff. When I bothered to look I saw several sets of funny looking shoe prints. They had tracks that looked like tire prints.

It wasn't long after that that Mr. Henderson showed up. When I showed him the tracks before he left he said, "Gotcha!" like an old time TV detective. I hope he has figured out who the trouble maker is because as little loss as it seems we've taken compared to others putting a hole in one of our barrels was just meanness and emptying the water could be a serious problem if we don't get some rain pretty soon.

I managed to get Rand and Pastor Ken to eat something today … I fixed scrambled eggs and biscuits. They slept most of the time and that seems to be what helped me the most so I left them to it. We all did have a treat for dinner. The cantaloupes that I planted are finally ready for harvest, well some of them are anyway. If I'm right, a bunch of them are going to be ripe tomorrow and I want to can a couple of things.

I didn't do much today but I'm so tired I feel like I must have weeded the garden and canned all day long too. I'm going to sleep out on the sofa tonight with Woofer in case something or someone comes around again.

 **September 9** **th** – Rand is up and around … sort of … and Mr. Henderson has taken Pastor Ken to his place. I spent a nice "relaxing" day cleaning all of the sheets and stuff that have been used and scrubbing bathrooms and anything else I could think of. Everywhere I went Rand kind of followed me around looking like a lost puppy. I guess he isn't used to being sick.

I tried to get him to stay put on the sofa with a book or on the porch swing but that lasted all of about two seconds each time. I finally got him to stay put long enough that he went to sleep when I started canning the cantaloupe and gave him a bowl of the chunks I had cut up to eat.

I have several pounds of cantaloupe sitting in bowls in the summer kitchen soaking in sugar and tomorrow I'll convert it to Cantaloupe Preserves. I'm also going to make a cantaloupe pie tomorrow since we got word from Mr. Henderson that one or more of the Crenshaws plan on dropping by. They had the virus run through their house too but mostly as a twenty-four hour bug and not quite as bad as Rand and I seem to have had it.

We need a name for this new communication system we have. Maybe the Henderson Phone or something. So long as word gets to Mr. Henderson or one of his patrols the word will eventually get where it is supposed to go. I don't mind precisely and I do appreciate it, it just feels weird having someone know so much of my business.

Today I managed to can a couple of batches of Spicy Melon Pickles. First combine three cups of vinegar, two cups of water with the following spices in a large sauce pot and bring it to a boil: 2 sticks cinnamon, 2 t. whole cloves, 1 t. whole allspice, and 1 t. ground nutmeg. Reduce the heat and simmer for five minutes. Remove from heat; add thirteen cups of cubed melon; and let stand 1½ to 2 hours. Add four and a half cups of sugar to sauce pot and bring everything to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Reduce the heat and simmer for forty-five minutes or until the cantaloupe chunks becomes slightly transparent. Pack the melon into hot jars, leaving a quarter inch headspace. Pour hot syrup left in the pan over the chunks, leaving a quarter inch headspace this time too. Remove air bubbles. Adjust caps then process for ten minutes in boiling water bath. Each batch only makes five jars but I think the two batches will be enough to last. Not everyone likes them but I grew up eating them.

Momma used to make a relish tray up when we had company over and it would be full of things she canned during the year. If I knew when people were gonna just drop by I'd try and do the same thing. The pie is going to have to do for tomorrow though. I'm just not up for much else.

 **September 10** **th** – Count me knocked over with a feather. It was Brendon who came by to check on things. I could tell he'd lost weight and like Rand, it didn't look good on him. Maybe I just don't like skinny guys or something. He, Alicia and Tommy had been the main caretakers out their way. It wasn't just the Crenshaws that came down sick. Just about everybody on their farm road had people down with this bug; most are doing better but there are some people that just can't seem to recover.

Mrs. Winston isn't doing well at all and Brendon said she isn't fooling around about it. She looks like she's had some kind of attack. Her color is off and her breathing is funny. She is sitting up on the front porch now but she can't seem to be bothered to even do her hair which isn't like her at all. Mr. Winston and JR don't seem to know what to do for her. I sent a basket of plums and some grapes and a cantaloupe and a jar of blackberry shrub. Brendon and Rand gave me a funny look but I'm just trying to do what Momma would have done. She was just like that and I figure there might be some things that I can do to be like her without endangering the rest of who I am. Besides, I'm not talking about becoming best buds with the woman, I just don't like to see people suffer. I've been through it enough in my life myself and it isn't anything to gloat over.

Brendon and Rand each ate a good sized slice of the pie I made. It's pretty easy to make but Momma only made it when we had fresh cantaloupes from our own garden. She said the ones in the store were too expensive and were never ripe enough to suit her. You start by mixing two tablespoons of flour with one cup sugar and then cream it with a quarter cup butter and two eggs. I used real eggs since not all the hens seem inclined to be mommas and walk away from their nests long enough for me to snag the egg or two I find every couple of days. Next you stir in two cups of cooked and mashed cantaloupe and add a pinch of salt. Next you are supposed to line a pie pan with plain pastry and bake until half done in moderate oven. I made a pat-in-the-pan crust since I haven't got the hang of making a pie crust yet that doesn't taste like beat up cardboard. While the crust is getting a little brown on it, you cook the sugar, butter, and egg mixture until it begins to thicken. Add one teaspoon of vanilla extract to that and then pour into half-baked shell and bake in moderate oven until everything is golden brown on top.

I was glad that Brendon came over because Rand still had that hang dog look on his face. I was hoping that maybe Brendon could cheer him up … or irritate him … something to make him not depressed. I asked Brendon to check on him because he wasn't talking to me much. While I made up the cantaloupe preserves that were calling my name they went for a walk to check on the easement field and then when they got back Rand went to the barn just long enough for Brendon to say to me, "He's all right. But, if he gets up the nerve to talk to you just hear him out. I think he's being an idiot myself but since I'm not in y'alls shoes what do I know?"

Of course that just confused the heck out of me even more. So after Brendon left I waited and waited and waited for Rand to talk to me about whatever is bothering him. But he wouldn't. Finally after dinner he just went out to the barn again. It was getting late and I was worried when he hadn't come in so I went out only he was just sitting there on the hay bales. I know sometimes I just need alone time and I thought I would walk away and leave him to it but then when I was half way back to the house I had to turn around. The whole "woe is me" thing was starting to bother me a lot. I had to know if he was really sorry we had gotten married or not.

I may not have mentioned it before but I don't like heights but I didn't have any choice but to climb that stupid ladder because I wasn't going to shout up to him.

"What?"

"It's getting late. Are you coming in?"

"In a little while."

I almost turned tail and gave up but I figured it was better to know now rather than later.

"Look, I have to ask you something and I really want a true answer, not just what you figure I want to hear OK?"

All I got was a grunt.

"Rand, are you sorry you married me?"

"No. Are you sorry you married me?"

"No, but … look, I know I don't know much about all this relationship stuff but it seems like every time I turn around the last little bit I'm doing something wrong. Wait. Let me finish 'cause I'm running out of courage and I don't know if I'm going to like the answer I get or not. I made you mad somehow last Sunday and I'm pretty sure I embarrassed you and I really didn't mean to do whatever it was I did and now you are acting all depressed and stuff and I just don't know what to do. You say you're not sorry you married me but I can't think what else it could be."

He just looked at me, not saying anything, and I finally did run out of courage and I started climbing down the ladder.

"Kiri. Kiri, don't. Come back."

But I couldn't just sit there anymore. I'm not very good at waiting for the other shoe to drop or whatever you call it. Rand started coming down the ladder but he is still weak from being sick. I'm not one hundred percent but I can move faster than he can. I ran to the orchard to hide and I thought he'd gotten the message that I just couldn't handle anymore for a while but then Woofer came to lick my face and then run off again. Traitor. He led Rand right to me.

"Kiri, I know you heard me calling you."

"Yeah? So? I just … leave me alone Rand. I got my answer and now I'm trying to deal with it."

"I never answered you."

"Yes you did. You didn't have to spell it out any louder. I'm sorry you feel that way. If you just give me a little time I'll try and figure out how to fix this. I never meant to make you miserable."

"You don't make me miserable," he said while he tried to put his arm around me.

"Don't Rand. Just don't. I've seen how you've been. You weren't like that before so that means that either I've done something or you've changed your mind. Either way it isn't fair to you to make that kind of sacrifice and …"

"Kiri would you shut up and let me get a word in? Come here. I'm too tired to chase you and you don't need to be running around either. You scared me to death. I couldn't … you wouldn't wake up."

"Well, that's not my fault."

"Kiri, please … just let me try and … I've made a mess of things. No! I mean it Kiri, no running off. Just sit here with me please. Thank you. Look, first I need to apologize. I should have on Monday but I just wasn't ready for you to see why I was upset."

"I still don't understand what I did that was so wrong. I mean I know I can be embarrassing and … "

"Kiri you didn't embarrass me. I just … I was … look … "

I sat there and tried really hard to wait and listen to him but I was getting the squirms so bad I could sit still.

"Look, I thought you were flirting with that guy … Ram or whatever his name is."

"What?! One, why would I do something so totally stupid as that and two, what have I ever done to make you think I'd ever do something so totally stupid?! And don't you dare compare me to Julia or I swear Rand I'll hit you or something."

But the look on his face was enough to tell me that is exactly what he had been doing. It didn't make me mad like I expected, instead it did something worse. It made me feel like my heart was breaking.

"Kiri, please … please … I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what Rand? For think I'm a cheating … well, a not nice girl? I promised that I would be loyal to you forever. I promised I would. I gave my word. What kind of person do you think I am that I would break my word like that? And to you of all people?!"

"What do you mean to me of all people?"

"What do you think I mean Rand?! I trusted you enough to marry you! And do all that stuff we do! Now to find out that you don't … that you think … "

If he hadn't wrapped both arms around me I would have run off. And if he hadn't been sick I would have done something to make him let go of me but even then I couldn't , not to him.

"Why did you marry me Kiri?"

"What do you mean why did I … Rand I told you before. I trusted you more than anyone else since my parents. I wanted us to keep our home and be able to stay here without people taking it away from us."

"Taking it away from you. This is all yours and … Ow! Dang it, that hurt! I don't have my boots on girl. You probably broke my toes!"

"I hope I did you big dope! I'm getting so sick of this stupid fight. I am done with it. If you tell me this place is just mine one more time it won't just be your toes I stomp on! Just like with the stupid money. It's ours and if you say one word otherwise you are going to like me even less than you already do."

"Kiri …"

"Don't Rand, I'm warning you. The way I feel right now I could just explode all over you and everyone else for miles and miles and miles around. I don't know what I keep doing wrong but that part I know isn't wrong. Sometimes it feels like that is the only thing I'm doing right. This … is … ours … and I'm not arguing about it anymore!"

"OK … OK … come here. Come on … come here."

There wasn't really enough room for both of us on the little bench so I wound up having to half sit on his lap which made me uncomfortably aware of just how close he was.

"Kiri, I wasn't really thinking about how you would feel to think that I thought … this is getting ridiculous. Kiri, look at me please. I was jealous. I was jealous of your friend Ram. Then the next day I found out that he was married and that the only way he talked about you to anyone else was like an annoying little sister … he was fond of you but that was it. Then … but … Kiri I didn't want you to know I was jealous."

"Well I don't know why you would even think anybody would want me … you see the kind of trouble I've been for you … but I understand even less why you would think I that like Ram enough to mess up our friendship and stuff."

"It's about that 'friendship and stuff' that you keep saying."

That hurt my feelings some more. "You mean you … you … you don't want … to be my friend?"

"Yes, I want to be your friend."

"Rand this is just confusing. I wish you would just come out and say what you mean because I've told you and told you I don't know how to play these games!"

Then he grabbed my face, turned it me towards him, looked me straight in the eye and said, "I was jealous because … because … I love you Kiri. That's it. I'm an idiot and I don't want to scare you off but there it is. I love you."

I remember feeling like the Grinch in the cartoon by Dr. Seuss … a heart several sizes too small suddenly growing so much my chest could barely hold it all in. I turned around in Rand's arms and hugged him with so much enthusiasm the bench went toppling backwards but I didn't care. He wasn't mad at me. He wasn't leaving me. He LOVED me! I couldn't stop laughing, only I was crying at the same time which was dorky but I didn't care.

But unlike those silly romance books rolling around in the grass is not without consequences. The skitters found us real fast and we had to get up which was a little embarrassing for me 'cause I'd come all undone somehow. We hurried and locked up the barn and got into the house before we completely got drunk dry by the flying devils. And despite it all, even with the best of intentions, all we could do was cuddle since we'd both just got over been so sick.

"Are you sure you don't … I mean … I know you are pretty young and you could change your … "

"Rand … I really, really, really don't want to have to move and stomp your toes again. And in case you haven't figured it out yet I love you too. I just didn't think you wanted anything like that from me."

"Kiri I swear we must both be crazy. Whatever the future holds let's go on being crazy as long as it is for each other."

And within a few minutes he was snoring again. I didn't know whether to giggle or hit him with a pillow. But this is … this is even bigger than getting married was. I thought I was going to have to keep my love quiet and to myself and be careful not even to write it down on paper so I wouldn't run him off or embarrass him. He didn't think he had anything to offer me … as if. Geez, Rand just doesn't get it sometimes. I have a feeling I have my work cut out for me with him. In a lot of ways he is really great, he makes me feel great, but it makes me mad at Julia all over again to think about why he thinks he doesn't have much to offer me. I'm just going to prove her wrong. She was dumb enough to do what she did but I'm not going to be that dumb … ever. Rand and I are married and we aren't just best friends we love each other too.

 **September 11** **th** – Patriot Day. Pretty ironic if you think about it. Mitch came by this morning early enough that the coffee was still hot but I could tell something was bad wrong right away by how white his face was. I screamed for Rand and he came running from the barn. Sometimes you just … know. I can't explain it. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it.

The sitting president of the USA has been assassinated as have several of the remaining ranking officials. Some group of foreigners tried to take over the US but they've mostly been killed off by the military forces. They are trying to gather all of the remaining people eligible to take over as president and hide them away some place. There have also been large explosions around the world. Nothing nuclear yet but who knows what will be coming next?

No continent has been spared and given their timing they had to be from the same group … bombs went off in strategic plances all over Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt on the African continent, there were several in France, Saudi Arabia, and a bunch of other places. England no, but one went off in Belfast for some reason. They found one set to go off in the London underground by accident and it was disarmed right before the others went off all over the world. Here in the US there was one in NY, one in Sacramento, Portland and Tampa; that's all we know of for sure though several big dams were supposed to have suddenly disintegrated too which would be an awful big coincidence to swallow. Mexico City got two and someone was hacked off at Venezuela for some reason because they got four in the capital alone.

Information is still coming in but they aren't sure how this is going to affect things. Everybody keeps saying they are "localized" events. They've said too many times that none of them were nuclear for everyone not to think that maybe some of them were, but we don't know for sure.

Rand and I haven't taken any chances we've been moving things around but who knows what is going to happen. It is hard to believe that a little place like Live Oak could be a target but there is lots of noise about it being Islamic extremist or anarchist or … well, there have been too many or's to be honest. Rand said as hard as it is going to be we are just going to have to wait and see. There is no polite way to say how much I hate that being true.


	46. Chapter 45

Chapter 45

 **September 12** **th** – No news is _not_ good news. It was Hoss who came by this time to let us know that all official chatter on the radio has gone silent. A lot of the civilian stuff is so crazy it is hard to know what is the truth and what isn't. Some of the more reliable signals or speakers or radio operators or whatever you call them are off the air with no reason given. Even the mainstream media outlets still using regular radio to broadcast are silent and went that way about four in the morning our time. I think shutting down the regular news organizations is just about the scariest part of it. That means that someone with enough juice to tell 'em to shut up just did. That can't possibly be good. And why would they say shut up? Maybe that's the scariest thing of all instead of the other.

To be honest, if I think too hard about any of it I start itching all over like I've got hives. I don't like being scared. I don't like it at all. It feels like how out of control my life was right after my family was killed. Rand and I have promised each other that we'll talk to each other more … not just about the love stuff but about other things that are on our mind. Keeping it bottled up inside us is something we both have issues with. He's a "protector" type and tries to shield me from too much stuff. I don't like being a "burden" because of my quirks. In a way we both need to get over ourselves but all of this stuff going on in the world isn't helping.

Rand suggested that maybe trying to keep what he calls some "normalcy" will help, give us a focus, a constant, a structure so that we don't go tearing off into bad habits that turned destructive on us. Good grief, I sound like Dr. Kramer. How weird is that?

I've been trying to get things done the best I can, trying to do stuff constructive that has to be done one way or the other. I harvested a full basket from my yellow crookneck squash today. I think my squash tastes better than the stuff that Aunt Wilma used to put on the table … even better than the stuff we used to serve at the diner and that was pretty decent. Maybe it is because it is my blood, sweat, and tears that went into growing it.

Rand said if I keep things harvested rather than just letting them sit and get bigger on the plants, the plant will actually make more in the long run. You can either get a handful of really big fruits or veggies off of a plant or you can get a lot more small and medium ones. The small and medium ones generally taste better. Sometimes if you let something get big it gets overripe or tough. I remember that from Momma's garden.

For lunch today I pan fried some squash slices the way you do fried okra; sliced them like silver dollars and then breaded them. We also had cornbread, fried apples and I … ew! … fried my first squirrel all by myself. I caught a squirrel in the garden digging at my plants and it made me so mad that I threw the metal bucket I sit on when I'm weeding by hand. Well I didn't really expect to hit it … the squirrel didn't either apparently … but I did. I picked it up by its fuzzy tail after I figured out it wasn't faking and took it to Rand who laughed so hard at my expression that he started coughing again.

He took it and cleaned it and then I fried it up just like fried chicken. It's a lot harder to eat something when you know what the inside of one looks like up close and personal but I figure if I can handle chicken I can handle other stuff. It's just going to take some getting used to.

If I could have figured out how to make gravy from the pan drippings I would have. Rand needs more fat in his diet. I don't mind being thinner but I can't seem to lose where I feel like I should lose. I feel like a mushroom. When I'm in the garden Woofer likes to get right up under me and sit in the shade I make. Blasted dog. I never thought I could be embarrassed by the affection of an animal but he's a kisser and if you don't let him he gets dejected.

But Rand's cough was making me concerned. He's not the only one I've heard barking. Hoss was doing it, Mitch was doing it yesterday, and Hoss said that Pastor Ken can't seem to kick the cough either. I kind of remember Brendon wheezing a bit too. Normally I would do the honey and lemon thing but I'm running out of lemon. There are so many things that I need lemon for, especially canning, that I am too worried about running out. If what I did doesn't help then I'll break down and use the lemon next.

I made horehound cough drops. You make a half cup of very strong tea from dried horehound and water. First you mix two cups of sugar and one cup of honey or corn syrup. Since I had the honey I used it. It made the drops extra dark but that doesn't matter. You need to boil the sugar mixture really hard until it reaches 290 degrees F. Lucky me I have a couple of candy thermometers but you can also do the hard ball stage test by dropping a drop of the candy into cold water. If the drop can be snapped it's at the hard ball stage. Then you stir in the strong tea. You pour this onto a buttered cookie sheet and then after it has cooled for just a minute or so but is still very pliable you want to run a buttered knife through the candy to "score" it into the size pieces you are going for. After the candy has cooled to the point that it cracks or breaks you need to go ahead and break the pieces apart then spread these pieces out to let them cool completely. Once that happens you shake them up in some powdered sugar to keep the pieces from sticking back together and then store them in airtight containers and keep it out of the sun the same way you would any kind of hard candy.

Horehound was Momma's favorite hard candy flavor – my personal faves are green apple or Rootbeer – so I knew all about horehound making good cough drops. I'd eaten enough of them as a kid. I also know how to make them and even Aunt Wilma had sworn by it because her "herbalist" recommended them. There was a good sized can of dried horehound from the health food store left over from the last time we had come up. I thought I was going to save it to make Christmas candy with but it was better to use it for this.

I'm thankful to say that Rand isn't coughing nearly as much anymore. When Mitch came by I made him pop one in his mouth and then take a little bag of them to Pastor Ken who is still convalescing at Mr. Henderson's ranch. Not an hour later Mr. Henderson shows up with this woman I'd never met. She has really dark hair and eyes but you can tell she is older, not as old as Mr. Henderson but somewhere near there.

"Ola chica. You must be the little senora that mi gallo speaks of."

It was a while before I could look at Mr. Henderson with a straight face. Gallo is Spanish for rooster and I'm not sure that he isn't a little too proud of the nickname.

Basically she wanted me to show her what I had done and I explained about the horehound. She is very nice and told me to call her Tia Cia as all of the men that work for Mr. Henderson do. Tia in Spanish means "Aunt" and Cia is short for Hortencia. I like her. I had assumed she was Mexican but now that I've met her I know she isn't. If I had to guess I would say Cuban or maybe a Spaniard but more than likely a Cuban. She said she was a little girl when her family immigrated and her father had been a doctor before that but became a shoe salesman once he came to this country.

I explained that I didn't have any more horehound and she said, "Not to worry muchacha dulce. I have more than enough for all of us. It grows like a weed in my herb garden. As soon as I get enough dried I will make sure you get some more. Gallo I need to get back to my kitchen and make some of these candy drops. I grow weary of all of the cough-cough-cough all day and all night."

I found someone else that has Mr. Henderson wrapped around their little finger. Rand said that more than one person has said that Mr. Henderson and Tia Cia should get married since they seem to get along so well but they never have. "Aunt Rachel said one time it was because of Cassie. Apparently Cassie wanted Mr. Henderson all to herself when she was little and was constantly jealous of anyone else in his life. He spoiled her pretty badly. She could be pretty obnoxious when we were younger and she and Julia were real close, maybe still are; I don't know."

Every so often Rand will let his mask slip when he talks about Julia and I can tell he is still hurt and confused by what happened. I try really hard not to let it bother me. Julia is with Ron Harbinger now … and dealing with whatever she has going on in her life … and Rand is with me. I trust him and I promise if it is the last thing I do I will make him forget all those nasty things her parents said to make him feel like he didn't have a lot to offer a girl. Their stupid is my gain … and I intend on keeping it that way.

 **September 13** **th** – Today we had a spoonful of sugar with the medicine … but the medicine was very, very bitter and the sweet didn't make up for it.

Rand had gone to the main gate to see what he could do about camouflaging it or making it stronger or something. We aren't sure what we are going to do. I was about to walk up and see if he needed any water when he came back leading what looked like the back end of a bread truck being pulled by a team of six mules. For a second all I could think of was Santa and his sleigh only without Rudolph. I was a lot closer than I could have possibly expected.

There were two really big men sitting on a makeshift wagon seat. Rand just stepped beside me but didn't say anything. The first one hopped down and came towards me. He was about as big as Bill is. He handed me a letter. Rand still didn't say anything, just put his arm around me so I opened the envelope and a piece of fancy writing paper fell out.

 _My Dear, Dear Girl,_

 _By the time you read this letter I will have gone on to be with my wife and son. While my days on Earth have been fewer in number than I expected, I can say in all honesty that they have been quite satisfying._

 _Illness has swept Tallahassee, cholera to be more precise. My age is not a help, nor is my already frail health from a persistent cold I suffered for several weeks prior to my contracting this dreadful disease. Loss of life has been quite high as the hygiene of this city's inhabitants is not what it should be. I was certain I was on the mend but I continue to have set back after set back and have come to the realization that the Lord is merely giving me time to clear my desk so that I may rest with no regrets._

 _Do not mourn me child for I go to a much, much better place. My only concern is that you still do not seem inclined to care very much for your financial security. I am confident your young man will help in that regard so it pleases me greatly to hand all of your case files over to him. While I hope you do not become upset by this rather chauvinistic appearing move I truly do feel it is for the best until such a time as he can hopefully have more luck convincing you of the necessity than I have._

 _My nephews will deliver what I have been able to acquire for your benefit. It is not nearly as much as I had hoped but relying on my cherished niece's suggestions I think it will be more beneficial than perhaps some other investments that I had considered until recently._

 _I have taken the liberty of paying my nephews a goodly sum for delivering this to you directly themselves rather than risking it to anyone else. This is for your security as much as for their benefit. The recent news we are hearing leads me to believe that things will soon deteriorate further and I hope that my nephews and their mother can find a better place to reside that will suit their talents away from the constant bureaucracy handicapping them here._

 _Blessings to you my dear girl and to your young man. Remember Psalm 27:4-6 my dear. It has been a comfort to me many times over the years._

 _Your friend and mentor,_

 _Barabbas Barnes, Esq._

 **September 14** **th** – I didn't feel like writing any more yesterday for a lot of reasons. Sadness is some of it. No time was also in the list. And fear … the news keeps getting worse. There was another round of explosions, this time in retaliation perhaps. Word – more like gossip and assumption - has it that the ground in the Middle East looks like Swiss cheese about now. Every country capable decided that it would be tit for tat. I'll explain how we found that out later.

All I could do was walk into Rand's arms yesterday and hold on. I complained about Mr. Barnes but at the same time he has been a constant in my life ever since my family died. I never wondered, not once, if he was on my side or not. He asked more from me than I felt I could give but he never gave up trying to change my mind, never gave up on me period. That's a lot more than I can say for other people. And now he is gone, my last tangible living link to that part of my life. I still can't think of it without crying and I hate that. Rand put me to bed early last night. That sounds so stupid but I was just to the point that I was so overwhelmed and I couldn't take in anything else.

"Uncle Barry, he thought you were something special. He told us to make sure that no matter what it took to get this stuff to you to do it, but we really can't stay though we appreciate your offer. Our pass expires in less than twenty-four hours and it's going to take that long to get back where we left Mom and get our own gear and get out of town while we still can. Where can we unload this stuff? Some of this is heavy."

"This" filled up about half of the enclosed wagon. There were barrels, a couple of large boxes, and plastic tubs of all sorts of things. "Mom told Uncle Barry that instead of sending cardboard boxes and bags to pack things in containers that could be reused. She helped pack most of this stuff so nothing should be broken. Those barrels over there have seed grain in them. Mom wanted to send more groceries but there just aren't that many to be had. Got you a small barrel of rice but had to pay an arm and a leg for it. Instead of groceries Mom had Uncle Barry send out seasonings and stuff like that. You'll have to look through the rest of this stuff to see what it is. Mom took care of most of it after Uncle Barry got really sick but he dictated some notes that are stuck in some of the containers. But this thing here, this was the biggie. He wanted you to get this especially. He got one for Mom as well and we've already set it up in our new place."

The biggest box held something that nearly floored Rand. You would have thought he would be the one cooking on it the way he made a fuss over it. I tried to as well but all I could do was sniff and then start crying again. It was a wood cook stove, something called a Pioneer Princess. Rand helped them maneuver the box over to the summer kitchen and they just slid it inside. Today Mitch came by and he helped Rand take out the old stove and stick it in the barn and move the princess into the newly vacant space, it barely fit. It isn't one of those really fancy looking cook stoves like you see in museums but I like it. It has a 20 gallon water reservoir … no more cold showers unless we want one … and has a warming oven above the cooking surface. It's boxy compared to the one that Alicia brought with her when she married Brendon but … well, it suits where we put it and I'm thankful to have it.

I can't use it yet because Rand has to run the exhaust pipe stuff but it is still pretty hot so cooking outside is better anyway. Rand said, "We're lucky that your parents had the electric oven on an outside wall. That's going to make my job a lot easier and I'm double lucky that it won't interfere with the bonus rooms right above."

I'm glad he knows what he is doing. I really am blessed to have Rand. Even if I didn't have all of this stuff from Momma and Daddy or any of this stuff that Mr. Barnes had sent out to me I think between the two of us we could still make out OK … but I'm no fool, I'm grateful and not ashamed to say so. His knowledge and experience are worth a lot more than he gives it credit.

Mitch told me a lot of people around here have a wood burning stove for heating their homes after heating oil went so high a few years back. Some people only have heat because they have stoves during the winters, especially the older houses. Living in Tampa for so long I have a hard time imagining houses without central heat and air but I guess you can get used to anything; I've actually gotten used to not having AC although if I didn't have the well pump full of cold water that would probably be a different story.

Mitch also told us people that don't have good house set ups are pulling stuff from vacant houses or are moving lock, stock, and barrel to some place better. The older homes that have been kept in good repair are especially attractive to folks. I asked him but what about the government taking it away from them and that's when he shared some of the news that they've been getting.

"Now, this isn't gospel. Mr. Henderson hasn't confirmed any of it yet. That relocation stuff they were doing? It's been put on indefinite hold. Too many things went wrong. The riots, the sicknesses, the cost of moving the people and trying to feed them … it just all went bad."

Rand wanted to know, "Where did you hear that? I thought the radio had quieted way down."

"It has, it surely has. It's actually that friend of Kiri's … Ram Diaz. His commander is a smart man. He knows that the only way they are going to be able to stay around here comfortably is if they create some goodwill with local residents. He's also been over to see Bill Sawyer."

I wanted to know, "What's Ram been up to now? Not that I don't consider him honest, but he can be a stinker."

"Yeah, he said you are pretty suspicious of people so if you trusted Mr. Henderson and the others that you introduced him to that he could pretty well take that as they'd been tried and found worthy … or something like that anyway. Made the Judge laugh and made the Pastor blush. Mr. Henderson just rolled his eyes but you could tell … well, as much as you ever can with him … that he appreciated what Ram was saying."

"So? Come on man, was that all that guy said?"

Rand still calls Ram "that guy" so I step easy when I talk about him. I hope eventually Rand isn't so sensitive about it. Ram was one of the better of the foster boys. I was still in the wheel chair for a couple of months when he was there and he was one of the few that never tried to prank me with it.

"Well … look, this really can't go any further Rand, not even to your family. Your uncle is a good man but if he thinks he can help his neighbors by saying something he will and Mr. Henderson really doesn't want this going further until we get some independent verification. He may be inclined to trust Ram but that doesn't mean he trusts him all the way yet."

We sat there just waiting for Mitch to decide whether he was actually going to say something or not.

"Things are a lot worse than the government is letting on. You might as well say there is a kind of world war going on but it is so … I guess you could say it is a very disorganized kind of war … it's happening everywhere, no country is being spared. Everybody has a grudge they've been holding. It is like lots of wars within a big war … individual grudges plus battles within coalitions with their own agenda and purpose. Oil and other natural resources have a lot to do with it. China is fighting multiple fronts … Africa, Australia, and they are even rumored to be supporting some of the terrorism that occurred trying to bring the US down several notches so that they'll be easier to draw into their new "empire." But the ones that they originally supported are doing their own empire pushing. Some of the Middle Eastern countries believe it is time for a new world order based on Islam. Everything is crazy. The bad guys and good guys change on a daily basis. Your friends of today are your enemies of tomorrow and vice versa."

"What about nukes? Were there any?"

"Ram says not to his knowledge but that isn't a definitive yes or no. It just means that the information hasn't made it down to his level yet. A lot more US cities saw explosions than were reported. If there was a major university with a significant Middle Eastern student body then there was an explosion. Doesn't mean the students did it but maybe people trying to blend in with university students did it. The locations that we know about were multiple explosions in NYC and several in NJ too; LA is so bad off that you can't tell the difference between what was damaged by riots, what was damaged by the explosions, and what is from the two recent earthquakes out that way; the DC area couldn't get much worse but they tried; Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia all went bonkers too … but whether that is Islamic extremist or work of extreme members of the Nation of Islam is anyone's guess. Additional reports are trickling down to his commander every day but he isn't privy to them all. What he has said is that we better prepare for things to be very bad this winter. And next spring might just be even worse."

"How can things possibly get any worse?!" I wanted to know.

"No electric, no fuel, no food … the winter is going to keep people focused on personal survival but folks that do survive the winter are going to be angry. The fewer people the farther the resources will stretch and that will pacify a few but that isn't going to stop a lot of people from being angry. As soon as they thaw out enough to figure the cavalry isn't coming no matter how much they bought into the continuation of all that hope and change crap they are going to want to take their disillusionment out on someone. That could mean widespread rioting … or even civil war."

Rand and Mitch went on about that last possibility and all I could do was pray that we didn't see it. They were talking about citizen fighting citizen … friend fighting friend … families being torn apart … lives changing forever … and lots of death. I was both fascinated and repulsed by the stories of what happened during the US Civil War in school. I must have watched that Ken Burns documentary enough times to have it memorized. There was no way that I wanted to live through a repeat of that. Too many women lost sons … too many women lost brothers … too many lost husbands. I could feel my chest tighten up at the very thought of Rand going off to fight a war, especially that type of war. I couldn't even listen to them talk about it.

After Mitch left Rand and I finished what chores we could for the day and then we sat on the porch swing and just cuddled. I want to hold him here, to me, not let him go off to fight some crazy war that someone else started because of their own stupidity. I think I'm beginning to understand how Momma must have felt when Daddy went off to places that she knew weren't safe for a US soldier whether he was there to fight or there to train. You are so proud on the one hand and on the other you are terrified that like the Spartans they'll come back "with their shields or on them."

Maybe I am getting hysterical or exaggerating or something. For now all we can do is sit and wait to see what else happens; or see if anything happens.

 **September 17** **th** – Been a busy few days. We were supposed to have church services today but Pastor Ken wasn't up for it and too many people are still sick or they are in the process of recovering.

Friday I tried baking in the cook stove for the first time. It really is nice; it even has a temperature gauge you can set. But boy does it heat up a room, even with just a small fire in the fire box. I had the doors and windows open just trying to breathe. It is a good thing that it isn't anywhere near the wood cabinets and that Daddy ran the granite backsplash all the way down behind the stove to the floor with the scraps left over from the countertops; the slate floor helps too according to Rand.

I'm reading the booklet that came with the stove … it is actually a second hand one that was refurbished or whatever you want to call a second hand appliance … and you are supposed to be able to cook eight loaves of bread in the oven at a time. The diagram shows that you have to fit them in there like a puzzle but I only cooked two loaves, some biscuits, and some cookies for the cookie jar that Rand can empty faster than I can fill it up.

Rand and Brendon spent the early morning hours seeding the field they had set aside for oats. It's not a big area, only an acre, and it took three bushels of what Mr. Barnes had sent in one of the barrels. Rand was glad not to have to use what was in his feed supplies. It didn't take but a couple of hours and it wasn't even lunch time when Brendon left. I wish he had stayed a little longer, I think he would have gotten a kick out of what happened next.

We had a visitor today that I recognized from our wedding. He was the man that brought the roasted pig. Our place tickled him. He said he's lived in Live Oak his whole life and it had been "many a year" since he'd gotten lost trying to find someone's house. "That dang road'll fool you all right. You start out knowing you are getting some place and then you start to wonder if it isn't a road to nowhere. Then you hit that gate right at your forty and you think you've found where you need to be and then you get half way back here and start wondering if you are heading the right direction all over again. I like it. Good location. The only thing you're missing is a year-round pond and I see ya got ya one on that eighty next to yer."

His name is Mr. Coffey … Thaddeus Coffey. When I write down what he says there is no way I can make up his deep southern drawl. I thought Momma had a southern accent when she would say things like "warsh" instead of "wash" but Mr. Coffey goes way beyond anything that Momma used to sound like.

I like him. I'm not just saying that because he said he liked us, "I says to myself, Thaddeus, them two done good by each other. They ain't biggety a tall like some folks is these days."

Seems Mr. Coffey was looking for the "right feller to hep him out." He's a bit like a smaller version of Mr. Henderson, "I ain't laid up but I ain't no spring chicken neither no how. So's, I say gots ta get some hep to get that sorghum in or it's gonna rot in the field. Who do I know what's wants some pay but will aktully work for it and take it in sumpin other than cash on the barrel? Well, you and that crazy cousin o' yorn's comes ta mind. I like to have thrashed that Brendon some kinda good a couple o' years ago when him and that cornsobbin Roberts boy went a hot roddin' through my corn but when Brendon dried out the next day I didn't have to hunt him up. He came all on his ownsome and apologized and then worked off the damage ever day after school and on the weekends without a word o' complaint and brought his own fixins to eat too, not expecting nothing. I recall hearing tell how you wusn't no saint neither 'til recently but I won't get into it as your missus is standing right here."

Rand looked like a deer in the headlights and it took everything I had not to laugh right out loud. I had to run in the house to get my face straight and brought out some bread and preserves as an excuse with some fresh cold tea. "Well, if I ain't gobsmacked. Boy, you better hold on ta this 'un. Better 'an that old 'un ya had. And keep her close. I hear tell of men of all ages looking to trade in what they got on a better model and if word gets out she can cook like this you'll be fightin' 'em off with a shotgun."

After Mr. Coffey left Rand went to go catch up with Brendon and work out where they would meet up in the morning. Rand will be using Bud and Lou and probably Hatchet too. He hopes to get a decent amount of grain and sorghum out of the work deal.

I baked apples for dinner – the red ones are coming in now on three different trees – and made cornbread patties that we ate with the leftover beans from lunch. For some reason I got the giggles all over again and Rand only made it worse when he asked, "Yer needin' hep with the dishes woman?"

We must have laughed off and on for the rest of the evening. It felt so good, almost as good as the cuddle before Rand fell asleep. I know there are bad things still happening out there but in here, in our home, this is our safe place. It seems like if we can keep a corner of this world set aside so that we can live and worship as we see fit then no matter how bad it gets out there we'll still be OK.


	47. Chapter 46

Chapter 46

 **September 18** **th -** Sure was quiet around here today. Even after Rand got home it was quiet because he was so tired. I actually didn't mind it but I wouldn't want to go back to living by myself all the time. Something reminded me today of watching Momma when it was time for Daddy to come home from work. She'd be working away but you could tell she would get a little excited and then we'd hear his car pull up and we'd go, "Daddy's home!" Gosh we were so "Leave It to Beaver." My friends didn't know whether to laugh at us or be jealous.

But Momma … her eyes always looked different when Daddy got home like … oh, I don't know how to explain it exactly but you could tell it made her happy to see him. After a certain point in the afternoon I caught myself listening for the sound of the wagon coming down the road and when I finally did … it was … it was like something missing had been found. If I had to explain this to anyone else I probably wouldn't be able to but here in my journal I can say what I feel without worrying that someone else won't understand or would make fun. It was nice when Rand came home … I like him coming home … it completes the picture in my heart.

As a surprise I had a bath ready for him; the water had time to lose that colder than cold feeling it has when it first comes out of the pump. I had a couple of buckets of warm water to pour in there too. He soaked until he was a prune. I had to hang his clothes outside they were so dirty and stinky. Harvesting the sorghum was hard work.

First you harvest the grain off of the sorghum. Rand said they went down the rows and cut the seed heads off with about a foot of stalk attached. You bundle a bunch of them together, tie them off, and then hang them in the barn to finish drying. That was the hardest work. "Babe, you should see it. Mr. Coffey has twenty acres of sorghum. He's giving us six for our own leaving him fourteen. He says that each acre should get us around seventy-five bushels of grain. Seventy-five … per … acre. Brendon and I are splitting it equal shares. We'll keep our three and he'll split his three amongst the rest of the family. That means that we'll get 225 bushels of sorghum grain. That's five of those big barrels. Mr. Coffey says that you can stretch wheat flour by using two cups of sorghum flour for every one of wheat flour to get a total of three cups of flour you can use for bread. And that doesn't include the rest of it."

The "rest of it" comes with more work. He told me first you have to strip all the leaves off of the stalk. This can be used for silage and Brendon took a whole wagon load home to his dad for the cows and pigs and what they won't use they have some neighbors that will take it for their goats and rabbits.

"I wish we had some more animals Babe, but it won't be much longer. Uncle George wants to thin the hogs out a little and Brendon said he's got his eyes on two gilts for us and JR says he knows where we can get a couple of boars with no problem. I just need to find the time to finish the fencing. And Mr. Henderson will be bringing that heifer and calf around before you know it too."

After you have the leaves stripped off you cut the stalks off close to the ground. "We'd cut stalks until our arms couldn't hold any more and then drop them in a bundle. Once we would get a section of the acre finished we'd gather up all of the bundles, put them in the wagon and then take them to Mr. Henderson who had Lou harnessed to the sorghum press. It's like one of those old-fashioned clothes wringers and as Lou walked around in circles he turned the gears that turned the press and squeezed the juice from the stalks."

Rand said the juice that is squeezed out is a cloudy green color. Sounds disgusting. It goes through a couple of strainers before it gets put into a barrel. From the barrel it goes to a series of evaporator pans. This juice gets boiled and as it boils the non-sugar solids float to the surface and are skimmed off. There is a particular degree that you have to boil the juice to for it to qualify as syrup but I wasn't paying attention like I should when Rand told me, I'll ask him again tomorrow. Basically by the time it gets from the first evaporator pan to the last one it is sorghum molasses.

"It takes about ten gallons of juice to make one gallon of syrup. According to Mr. Coffey syrup production varies from year to year. You get anywhere from between 100 gallons and 250 gallons of syrup per acre depending on variety and how the crop did for the season. From what we are seeing we should get about 150 gallons of syrup per acre this year." Rand laughed at the expression on my face.

"I hate to ask Honey but I need as many of those big old jars as you can spare with lids. Brendon and Clyde are going to scrounge around and see if they can't come up with some casks or barrels. We're going to struggle to find enough containers to put 450 gallons of syrup in. Mr. Coffey has these big barrels that he stores the syrup in but even he doesn't know what he is going to do with it all. He's thinking that if we ever get the farmer's market going again he could trade it by the pint, quart, gallon, or even bucketful if someone had something worth trading for."

Personally I don't have a clue what we are going to do with over four hundred gallons of sorghum. I found the following in Momma's notes so I know you can replace regular sugar for sorghum, but I still don't know what affect it will have if I use it for canning. And how are we going to keep from attracting ants and other bugs?

 **Substitution of Sorghum for Honey** \- Sorghum can be used in place of honey in almost any recipe on a simple one for one basis. The only exceptions are those recipes for cookies and cakes that use baking powder, where the change may prove troublesome (recipes calling for baking soda will not cause any trouble).

 **Substitution of Sorghum for Molasses** \- In non-baking applications (such as meat sauces, barbecue sauces, baked beans, etc.) sorghum can be substituted for molasses on a one-for-one basis. In baking recipes (such as cookies and cakes), sorghum should be substituted for molasses one-for-one, but it is necessary to cut the amount of sugar used in the recipe by 1/3 of the amount specified. This is because sorghum is sweeter than molasses.

 **Substitution of Sorghum for Sugar** \- In replacing ordinary sugar with sorghum, increase the amount of sorghum by 1/3 over the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. At the same time, decrease the amount of liquid (milk and/or water) by this same amount. This is to keep the amount of total liquids and sugars in balance.

Tomorrow I'm going to experiment with the gallon of sorghum that he brought home today. I also need to figure out a way to hang the seed heads in the barn that he brought home too without losing them all to the birds that fly in and out of the barn when the doors are open. I have a suspicion that this is going to be even harder than it looks.

 **September 19** **th** – Another quiet day. Up way before daylight and Rand nearly had to take the lantern with him so he could see to get out but he promised he would drive the team very slow until the sun came up more. He met Brendon … and he said that Mick and Tommy came as well … up at CR49 to go to Mr. Coffey's together.

I felt at loose ends even though I had a ton of work to do. The zucchini started making yesterday so that meant that today I needed to get some of them canned. First I made eight pints of crisp zucchini pickles. I had to use dried veggies for some of the ingredients so I hope it comes out OK. The next thing I made, dilled zucchini sticks, was easier because all I needed was zucchini, seasonings, and onion all of which I got by the barrel full thanks to Mr. Barnes' niece. I have a feeling that I will continue saying a prayer for this woman I never met for many years to come. I also made zucchini relish, zucchini in tomato sauce (I used commercially canned tomato sauce for this), and zucchini-pineapple.

Tomorrow I'm going to make a zucchini chocolate cake but after shredding four quarts of zucchini for the zucchini-pineapple I'd had enough of the zucchini squash for a while. Next came canning the crookneck squash. I pickled four pints of them and it wasn't much different than pickling zucchini.

Just to make sure I was really sick of looking at squash today I made Zucchini and Yellow Squash Soup for dinner. I sautéed onion, shallots, and garlic that I had rehydrated from my dried supplies in olive oil. Then I added about a quarter cup of flour and stirred that for about three minutes. Then I added one and a half cup of sliced zucchini and a matching amount in yellow crookneck squash and cook all of that until the squash is soft which takes about 5 minutes if your slices are a quarter inch thick. Then I added three cups of chicken stock that I made up from chicken bouillon, three cups of evaporated milk with a little butter mixed in to substitute for the cream the recipe actually called for, and some basil and oregano to taste. I reduced the heat to a simmer which meant pulling it back from the hot spot on the pot belly stove top and simmered it for twenty minutes. I had some for lunch and saved the rest for Rand's dinner. It needed something and when Rand asked if I minded if he added salt and pepper I realized that is what was missing.

In between canning batches I watered the garden, refilled the water barrels from the pump … Rand is praying the rain holds off until they can get the sorghum in although the oats need it … and experimented with the sorghum syrup or molasses or whatever you want to call it.

I made a pretty doggone good gingerbread with that sorghum if I do say so myself. Rand sure did eat a good slab of it with no complaints. I only substituted some of the sugar with the sorghum rather than all of what Momma's recipe called for and I could tell the difference in flavor. I think with dark, spicy cakes the sorghum will be really good; like pumpkin bread or tavern bread … yum yum. I don't think it will be a good substitute in a white or yellow cake that I need to taste light but I'll probably wind up giving it a try at some point. I bet it is good with chewy cookies too. And pies … wow, I imagine that I'll really be able to make some good pies with sorghum.

Good grief, I've got the munchies all the time lately. Good thing I finally got my monthly or I'd be worrying that Rand and I had miscounted and whoopsied. I'm not as worried about that as I once was. It's kind of … well … it sounds nice to have Rand's baby. But on the other hand I wouldn't mind putting it off for a while either.

Rand asked me the other night, before my system straightened out, if I would be really upset if … well if I was to be pregnant and I didn't know how to answer him exactly. I'd be scared but not upset like he was thinking I'd be upset. I'm glad though that is a worry I don't have right now and I think, secretly, Rand is too. He's under a lot of stress trying to get everything lined up while we still can.

Tomorrow Rand is going to get Clyde or Bill to come with them to Mr. Coffey's place and ride shotgun back. When they got there this morning Mr. Coffey had already had trouble and if it hadn't been for the fact that his grandson and his family had shown up overnight the trouble might have gotten out of hand. Some people demanded that Mr. Coffey "share" his crop.

"I wouldn't a minded hepping 'em but they jist were bound to take rather than work for it. I tol 'em that they could hep bring the grain in and I'd cut 'em in shares but that weren't good enough. My grandson and his boy wound up coming out o' the house both of 'em with both barrels loaded and the varmints rethought their ways … at least for now."

With the extra hands they hope to get most of the rest of grain and stalks out of the field before the end of the week. It'll take longer for the canes to be squeezed and the juice boiled down but if they keep the boiler going around the clock they should be done with it a few days after that. Mr. Coffey wants them to get the rest of their due tomorrow and bring it home and if they can trust him to do their syrup he figures he can count on them to show up the next day and help him get the rest of his portion in. Maybe the days of making agreements on a handshake are coming back.

I'm glad we have the extra work gloves for Rand to take and that my Dad was particular about the gloves he spent his money on. As tough as the gloves are the seam has already ripped out of the pair he was using and it took me a good twenty minutes tonight trying to find a needle and thread strong enough to fix them. I wound up having to use an upholstery needle with denim thread.

 **September 23** **rd** – Today should be the last day that Rand has to work at Mr. Coffey's and a good thing too. Mr. Henderson says that Momma O is predicting a late season tropical storm with lots of rain but it won't be here for another day or two. In a way I'm glad because the garden needs a good deep watering and I can't really do that with the watering can. I'd still like to know how she can tell but I guess some things in life are just meant to be a mystery.

I wound up having to put mulch down between the vegetable rows and squares to try and keep the weeds down and the moisture in. The only thing that I really had was the cypress saw dust or some type of tree debris. It was a big "no" on the sawdust. Aside from the fact that it would be too acidic for the plants it would also attract carpenter ants which is something I definitely did not want. Besides, I think the sawdust will be better used as animal bedding that we can then compost.

Of all the tree debris I have to use it looks like pine needles are going to make the best sense but only if I use the completely brown and dried ones. I know Uncle Charlie used to pay an arm and a leg … willingly … to use pine straw in his landscaping. I've got a bunch for free and I've been laying it down for a couple of wheelbarrow loads at a time. Rand said he'll get me a whole wagon full tomorrow or the day after.

The other thing that I've been doing is tying the bundles of sorghum to some metal fence posts … the kind you use to put of rabbit fencing … and then laying the fence posts between two exposed steel beams in the barn so that the sorghum bundles hang down from them like I remember tobacco hanging in my grandfather's barn.

Rand had a fit when he found out I was up on the tall fiberglass ladder doing that but then we talked it out and the reality is Rand can't do everything himself. We can't afford a hired hand … Rand wouldn't be comfortable with that at this stage anyway. He wouldn't trust them enough to leave me alone with them. Maybe if it was a kid but that could turn into more of a responsibility than a benefit.

So, he has to accept my help and I try and make sure he doesn't feel guilty about it, like he is doing me a favor by letting me help because it makes me feel good. It does, but you have to be careful how far you take that or you can get your relationship all out of whack. If I didn't have to climb that ladder I sure wouldn't be doing it, I hate being up that high and trying to balance everything, but reality is it has to be done.

I experimented with another sorghum recipe. This one was for apple sorghum bread. First you cream a stick of soft butter (I had to use the powdered stuff since we don't have a cow yet) with a half cup of white sugar until it is light and fluffy. Add three eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine two cups of flour, half a teaspoon of cinnamon and a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg and set it aside. Mix one cup of applesauce and a quarter cup of sorghum syrup. Add dry ingredients alternately with applesauce mixture to egg mixture. Next fold in one cup of raisins and a half cup of chopped nuts if you have them. Pour this batter into a greased loaf pan a bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes somewhere the flies can't get at it and then remove from the pan and continue cooling it the rest of the way on a wire rack.

Gosh it was so good. I slathered a slice with apple butter and just about made me a meal out of that alone. I guess I'm at the bottom of losing weight that doesn't hurt me just like Rand now. It seems I'm hungry a lot now that I'm working hard outside every day. I can't wait for Rand to get home to try a slice of this.

 **September 23** **rd** – Rand didn't have to leave today! We even let Pretty Boy crow to wake us up instead of getting up before the chickens. That was nice. Rand said he was awake just glad to be able to lay in bed a few minutes before having to fly up and out.

I can tell he is very tired but he isn't letting that stop him from getting work done. As soon as the grain is finished drying we are going to thresh about half of it and put it in a metal barrel. The other half we are going to try and leave on the stalks until we need it and use most of that for the animals.

And I couldn't believe it but Rand brought home two nanny goats and a billie yesterday too. The people over on Uncle George's road that kept goats have left. They just threw what they could into backpacks and set out on bikes. They've got family out in Texas and that is where they are heading. They are in their thirties with no children so they figure they'll just keep moving as quick as they can to get there. I feel like calling them crazy but at the same time I basically did the same thing. Which one of us is crazier?

As far as the goats go well, that billie isn't going to be on this Earth much longer if he doesn't stop being such a rat finking stinker! I can't turn my back on him without him taking aim. The first time I put it down to an accident but the second time I know … I absolutely for sure know … that goat was laughing at me. And Rand did too which added insult to injury. He wasn't laughing after that goat tried doing the same thing to him … only it wasn't his rear bumper that was the middle of the bull's eye. Try the other side, and Rand turned an interesting shade of green.

The nanny goats are just sweet but nosy. And my goodness those three can eat. I thought Rand was being a little mean to put them over in a corner of the home site that was full of oak sprouts and sawbrier vines but they've mowed just about the whole area down already. It's amazing. As soon as they are finished with the patches inside the homesite that Rand wants mowed he said he is going to put them in an area on the other side of the garden and let them clean up around several of the big oaks over in that direction.

Where the goats are currently mowing things down Rand is going to build a … pig pen is I guess what you'd call it. It is going to have a little house and a sturdy fence so nothing can get at them. They'll get some sun but they'll have plenty of shade from the spreading oaks and will enjoy the acorns that fall into their pen. I didn't know it but apparently pigs and hogs can get sunburned pretty bad just like people do. You learn something new every day.

The only major problem I had today is that my clothes line snapped and two whole loads of wet laundry went down in the sand. I had to rewash them but it only took a rinse thank goodness to get the sand out. All but the blue jeans were completely dry before night started falling and they'll dry overnight in the summer kitchen.

There was a dampness to the wind last time I was outside before we locked down for the night. I guess we'll see how right Momma O is in her prediction.

 **September 24** **th** – Rain, rain, and more rain. It hasn't been bad but it has been steady all day long. We've re-filled all the water barrels and I'm glad we managed to make room for all the animals in the barn, it's not a day just to leave them out in the weather. We've had a few lightning storms.

And something is wrong with the plumbing. We had to set up a sawdust bucket out on the lanai and tomorrow Rand said he'll try and figure out what it is. It isn't a clog inside the house. Rand went outside and checked the main line at the clean out which is just outside my parents' bedroom between the house and the septic tank and it was full. He pulled the concrete plug on the septic tank and it was full too. He says that means that either the filter is clogged, the leach pipe is plugged, or the leach field is bad. When he told me that if it was the filter or the pipe he could more than likely fix it but if it was the leach field that was a different problem and that it would wind up just being easier to build an outhouse.

I'm sorry but the first thing I thought of when I thought of an outhouse was that dead woman I found. I'm praying really hard that it is something that Rand can fix. If I don't have any choice I'll use an outhouse but it will be a blow to have to give up my comfortable indoor toilet.

Other than that we've had a fairly quiet day going over where we are at as far as projects and food inventory and where we are going to start putting things. I've still got room in the summer kitchen for cans and jars but I would like to keep as much as I can hidden in the pantry closet. Rand said that Daddy "mouse-proofed" the cubby holes as much as possible but we are still going to need to keep an eye on things. The cubbyholes are actually aluminum boxes. The side of the box that faces the attic … the outside … is insulated with pressed board insulation. The inside of the boxes is lined with more pressed board with a vapor barrier and then built out a little bit with drywall, tape, and spackle to make it look like a plain ol' closet. That will be a good location for some grain storage because it should stay dry. We'll just rotate the inventory in that hidden space once a month or so until we test how long things will last.

I broke down and made cornbread with beans and rice in the princess because it was just too wet to try and cook outside even with the patio cover that Rand had built. Mitch came by in time for lunch today. Things are deteriorating around the community. There are a lot of "haves" and about as three times as many "have nots." Pastor Ken is being pressured by some community members to get him to make those that have stuff give it to those that don't. In fact a man landed a punch on the pastor when he tried to explain that if they would offer to work for some food they'd likely find several people willing to help them. There's that entitlement thinking again.

Ram sent me a message via Mr. Henderson. He wanted to know if Rand would be interested in bringing his wagon to a certain location on a certain date and time and help haul off "trash" for his commander. A verbal message came along with the written note, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

The cryptic games sound just like something that Ram would get a kick out of. But I told Rand he probably was serious and had something that he thought we might be interested in. With no hint of what that could be Rand asked Mitch what he thought. Mr. Henderson had also been asked to come and he was inclined to satisfy his curiosity. The meet up is tomorrow really early in the day. Brendon is coming even earlier and Rand is going to ask him to ride shot gun. I'm glad. It's not that I don't trust Ram exactly; it's just a matter of Rand's safety. Traveling alone anywhere for any reason just isn't a good idea these days.

And with that I'm off to bed. Rand and Brendon have a long day tomorrow and so do I. I've got cucumbers and snap beans to pick and can tomorrow.


	48. Chapter 47

Chapter 47

 **September 25** **th** – Wow, just wow. Ram really came through. I'm mean totally came through. The "trash" was a bunch of stuff the government had transported down for the relocation centers. The problem for the military is that the relocation centers have all been disbanded. Ram said most people accepted a train ride back to where they came from so we don't have to absorb too many new people into the area.

There are train car loads of stuff that was supposed to be handed out in those camps and now they have no one to hand them out to. How they get rid of the stuff has been left up to local commanders but it has to be done quickly because they need the train cars back for moving troops around, etc. We've gone back to a coal-driven industry base … or something like that.

OK, so none of it is food … that's the lumps and Rand and I figure we aren't doing too badly at all considering but I sure was happy to see some of the stuff he brought back. It's also a double good thing that the RCs were dismantled because without food those places were going to turn into concentration camps the way things were going.

What there was though made me very happy. Soap and cleaners! Bath soap, laundry soap, borax, washing soda, dish soap, household cleaners, toothpaste, mouthwash, bug spray, etc., etc., etc. There were household goods and paper products … sheets, blankets, pillows, table clothes, miles and miles of toilet paper (good thing too since Rand and I were starting to resort to the yellow pages if you know what I mean), feminine products, sponges, brooms, mops, scrub brushes, buckets, toilet brushes, etc.

Clothes … oh my goodness … Rand must have brought back enough clothes to start up our own department store. He told me to go through it and what I don't think we can use or won't store or whatever he'll give back so that it can go in the pile that is going to a community thrift store sort of thing the military are setting up that Bill and Missy will help … uh … administrate or something like that. People are just going to be allowed to come in and pick out stuff but not like Rand, Brendon, and Mr. Henderson and the Pastor did. Each family got a huge wagon load … in fact we got three if you count the fact that Brendon helped Rand bring two loads home in the big wagon and then they went back and filled up the wagon again for the folks at the Crenshaw place and Rand brought yet another load home in our little wagon.

Rand mentioned putting some stuff together for Momma O's family but Pastor Ken was already on it since he has taken to staying in a little apartment that is over their garage. That's another story … somebody tried to burn the preacher's house down out on CR51 and if it wasn't for someone passing by he would have lost everything including all the pictures of his wife and son that died during the pandemic. Pastor Ken said he is taking it for a sign. He was having a harder and harder time going home to his empty house; he'd start sitting there dwelling on the memories rather than living in the here and now.

I will be sending some of those clothes back over to Missy to deal with. A lot of them are the wrong size … Rand just kind of guessed I suppose … and some of them I can't imagine what on Earth I'd do with. The clothes were just baled together by sizes … I mean literally baled together with plastic strapping like you used to see on stuff stacked on wooden pallets. Some of the cleaning supplies were thrown into barrels and boxes and a lot of the contents didn't match. For instance, there were two big cases of bath soap but the only thing that matched about the bars of soap that were inside one of the boxes were the same basic size and shape but different brands, different smells, different colors, that sort of thing. And there were a couple of boxes of what looked like grated soap flakes from all different types of bars. That's when I really started wondering where all this stuff had come from.

Rand must have seen the confusion and stuff on my face because he came over and hugged me and said, "Don't start making a fuss Kiri. Please. This is good for us."

"But where did it all come from Rand?" I asked. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be comfortable with his answer.

After a deep sigh, "Don't come unglued Babe. You remember me telling you about the early work days where we went house to house in groups and cleaned out abandoned houses of food and stuff? OK … well that stuff had been going on all over. The stuff pulled together around here stayed around here because the program was being run by locals, by people invested in the community. In the big cities and suburbs around them the government was more careful. They shipped in people that didn't have any connection or sympathies within the communities and everything brought in was boxed up and sent to some type of central warehousing system. Lord only knows what they thought they were going to do with it all. Ram says that there are warehouses up north with stuff just sitting around rotting, full of rodents and bugs, algae and mildew. They basically created hazardous waste sites that can't even be entered anymore because of all the mold spores floating around. And they're fire hazards too."

"But this stuff is all still packaged … well, I mean most of it is."

"They raided stores, warehouses, production plants, central distribution points; you name it and the government took the inventory in the interest of the public for redistribution. They just never seemed to get around to actually redistributing it. The people that were in the work for food programs would box like items up together or bundle them or whatever and it would go into storage. Items that came in as partials would be treated differently."

I was having a hard time soaking this information in.

"Let's take this barrel of liquid soap and this box of grated soap for example. Ram said that anything salvageable was taken even partially used cleaning supplies and open food items out of refrigerators. The open bottles of dish detergent would be set aside and someone would come to collect them, open them, and dump them in a big vat where it was remixed. Doesn't matter what color or smell the soap was. That's why those two barrels both look they have snot in them but each barrel has different colored snot in it."

"Rand, that's gross! And silly you big goof."

Rand laughed at me and said, "I know Babe but I wanted to get the frown off of your face. As for the grated soap, used bars of soap were thrown in this big grating machines, mixed together, and then dumped into these garbage bag lined cardboard boxes. I figured you'd be able to figure out some use for them."

"Well … yeah. It's not rocket science. I can make my own laundry goop … Momma did and I showed Aunt Wilma how and she did since it was cheaper than buying everyone their own bottle of laundry detergent. We all had to do our own clothes. With a little damp we could even press some of them into balls or bars to make bath soap."

"See! What did I tell you? And I told Brendon you'd figure something out. Look, there's … well … there's something else. Brendon got me thinking and … here's the thing. We can try really hard to put it off for a while but … " He took a big breath and then took me over to the stuff that was still covered on our wagon. "I probably should have asked first or taken you with me or …"

Rand pulled back the tarp and I must have gone red from head to toe and really it was sweet but I'm still kinda feeling sort of like I've got the shivers. There was baby stuff in there … a bed and a cradle and clothes and I still haven't looked at it all. It is just sitting in the house in the middle of the floor with the other stuff until we figure out how we are going to store everything securely.

"There was stuff like pots and pans and dishes but I didn't figure we needed any more of that." He looked relieved to have guessed right after I shook my head in the negative. "And Ram said there is furniture and mattresses but I wouldn't even know where we would put it but if you want … Good, because … well … there is some stuff that Brendon and I want to go through tomorrow that Ram is bringing in the next load."

The way he was hemming and hawing I knew right away it must be tools and things like that. "Well, yeah, I mean spare parts and …"

I had to laugh. "Rand, I'll tell you the same way my Momma told Daddy … as long as I don't have to trip over it I don't care. Is that a deal?"

Then Rand laughed and we actually had a good time bringing stuff inside but I have to say the house is an absolute mess again. I've been canning green beans all day today and haven't even had time to do any pickles yet and there is no way I'm going to be able to do what I need to do in the garden, in the kitchen, and get all this stuff put away too. No wonder Momma would get frustrated with me when I wanted to go outside and play when she needed help inside. It's too late to apologize now but I guess paybacks will come at some point. I can remember Daddy laughing when Mom would tell brother and I, "I hope you grow up to have one just like you." Hmmm. If Rand is really serious about that baby stuff maybe I ought to be a little more worried than I am right now.

After Rand was through carting stuff in he dug up the leach pipe. It was full of roots. We were very lucky that the roots came in from the septic tank lid and not in from the leach field side. It is still going to be a major mess. The pipe was so plugged up there was no cleaning it out, Rand had to cut the pipe in several places until he got beyond the roots. And when he cut the lines it was a disgusting mess as the liquid came pouring out of the tank … just nasty looking water because the solids had settled but still, how majorly gross.

The septic tank is going to have to remain open until enough liquid runs out that Rand can fix the plumbing. Plus he has to find some schedule 35 PVC along with things he calls couplers and PVC glue to piece the leach line back together. Looks like it is still going to be the bucket for the next couple of days, I hope he can find what he says we need. I always feel like someone is watching.

 **September 26** **th** – Argh! I hate yellow-jackets. I got stung all to pieces on my back and it hurts to lie down. It hurt so bad I cried even though I tried not to and when Rand came home after his second run over to Ram's rendezvous he nearly didn't go back because of it. I felt stupid and told him he'd better get before I got really upset. That made him smile a little bit but he still brought back a surprise in the last wagon load he brought in.

Why I ran into the nest of yellow-jackets is because I was chasing after Woofer who had caught a coyote slinking up to the house. It was either after Fraidy or the chickens but Woofer caught its scent first and lit off after it like he was going to tear it to ribbons. Maybe that fence around the homesite isn't a bad idea after all. Well, I think it is kind of weird for a coyote to strike in the middle of the day so I'm thinking it was either really hungry, really bold, or a disease and either way I don't want Woofer tangling with one so I went after tearing after that crazy dog.

I must have disturbed a nest as I was running through the bushes because it just felt like one or two pokes with a hot pin at first and then my back was on freaking fire. I ran, stripping out of my shirt … maybe not the smartest thing to do … but I managed to get back to the house in one piece without a sting any place else except one on my … uh … sitting spot that made it through my jeans. I couldn't see much in the mirror at first but within about fifteen minutes my back looked deformed. About the only place they didn't get to was where my bra straps were. I put on a loose shirt and Woofer came back having chased his opponent I don't know how far. That dog is seriously deranged. He came back with my shirt in his mouth like we'd just played the best game of catch ever.

Pain or no pain I still had more canning to do. I got forty quarts of green beans done yesterday and my fingers are so sore that I just started cutting the ends of the beans off with a paring knife instead of pinching them off like you are supposed to. The chickens and goats liked the bean stuff that was left over. That billy is evil I tell you, this morning he stole my bucket as I was trying to dump pieces of green bean in their pen for them to eat and there was no way I was climbing over in there to get it back. Then the stupid thing got it hooked on his horn and kept trying to sling it off. I let Rand get it off when he came home for a bite of lunch before heading back out. The goat and I really need to have a discussion about what is acceptable behavior. And he smells too which is another mark against him. I wonder if there is a way to give him a bath. I asked Rand tonight and he started laughing so hard he fell off the sofa. I still don't get what is so funny.

I just realized what I wrote: "I got forty quarts of beans done." Done. I'm slipping and slipping bad. Maybe I should pull out the ol' school books and finish my education. Like my English teacher would say ad nauseum, "Turkey's get done, people get finished."

That also brings to mind the fact that Rand said Uncle George is worried that Charlene, Janet, Mick, and Tommy are going to grow up ignorant. He's started teaching them lessons three days a week using their old school books and the Bible. I mentioned it to Rand and said that I was worried that I was sliding and he replied, "Babe, you're a walking encyclopedia of memories and what you don't remember you know how to look up. That's called being a researcher. You take your research and you put it to use in your own experiments, keeping track of the progress from beginning to end, that's science. You inventory what we have, estimate what we need, and create a plan on how we are going to get it and that's math, accounting, and just about the rest of it. You want me to keep going because I can. We all slip every once in a while. You've heard what I sounded like after spending a week with Mr. Coffey. It weren't no easy task finding me education agin' after losing it for so long lil' gal."

I couldn't help it. Between being embarrassed by his praise and surprised by his silliness I busted out laughing. He makes me feel good about myself in a way I haven't felt since I lost Daddy. I don't mean that how it might sound. I don't look at Rand like a … a … father figure or anything like that. I just meant that he makes me feel secure. Yeah, I think that's it. Rand makes me feel secure inside and out. Even when there are problems he's solid, a … rock … a good foundation. I'm so glad we worked things out. Every day I find things that make me even gladder.

It doesn't hurt that he likes my cooking either. I cooked a pot of green beans today and they sure were good. I wish I had had a little bit of bacon or meat to stick in there but I didn't so there isn't any use in making a big fuss about it. I made biscuits, mashed potatoes, and pan fried more squash with some onions. I sent a five gallon bucket of stuff home with Brendon and sent over a basket of goodies for Ram too. Rand laughed when he said Ram was fighting off some of the other guys who spotted the jar of jam and the apples and the sorghum cookies. If Ram is anything like he used to be he'll wind up sharing them willingly later; he just likes to make a fuss about it first. And he probably wants to save some for his wife. I hear from Rand that she is very, very quiet … like something happened to her quiet … and Ram is very protective of her. He saw her yesterday but not today. There's a story there but I don't know if it is any of my business to know it.

Today I canned Dilly Beans, Dilly Pepper Beans (which is a lot like Dilly Beans only you add a good dose of cayenne pepper), and Spiced Green Beans (you can do beets or carrots like this too). This only amounted to a canner full. Mostly what I've been doing today are pickles.

When Momma O wrote on the envelope that the pickle vines would make more than you could keep up with she wasn't kidding. Wow. I have these growing up a trellis and for two days I've picked everything ripe and there will be more to pick tomorrow. Maybe I planted too many.

For the pickles I made Ice Water Pickles, sweet chunk pickles, bread and butter pickles, mustard pickles, sour pickles, kosher dills, lime pickles, curry pickles, garlic pickles, ginger pickles, hot-and-sweet pickles, and sweet-and-sour pickles. I know it sounds like a lot but really with both fire pits and the pot belly going I was able to keep up with no problem because I had prepped all the cucumbers first thing this morning. Tomorrow I'm going to make some cucumber relish and cucumber catsup. And I'm also going to try drying some pickle chips and cucumber chips just to see if it will work. I also plan on blanching and drying a lot of the green beans.

I'll have company tomorrow because Rand said he has to get back to work around our place. I asked him if he needed to go to his uncle's pretty soon and he said he might in a couple of days. With Mr. Winston and JR over there helping he feels like he'd be one set of hands too many especially when we have so many things that need doing here.

The oats look like a carpet of green grass where they are coming up. The rain we had the other day did them a lot of good. Rand is worried about all the deer and tomorrow Clyde is coming over and I'll probably need to be ready to preserve some more venison. Doing all of this on my own is a lot of work. It makes me realize why women were so happy to have lots of daughters … or daughter in laws. Or neighbors. Melly is coming with Clyde tomorrow if Roo is up for it and we'll see what else we can get up to.

Oh, before I forget to record it, the surprise rand brought back with him was a load of … well, it wasn't really food but it sort of was. Ram said it had been buried under bales of clothes and after they'd gotten them out of the way they found them. I got eight gallons of white vinegar, a case of 24 quarts of cider vinegar, a barrel of white sugar, a half barrel of brown sugar, a half barrel of regular salt and a whole barrel of coarse grained kosher salt, a big jug of vanilla flavoring, and wrapped up careful was a gallon of pickled pigs feet, a gallon of pickled eggs, and a gallon of pickled sausages. I was way beyond happy to see everything but the pickled pigs feet. I am sorry, I may be Southern, my Daddy may have loved them to pieces, I may even have helped my Memaw make them … but I just cannot bring myself to eat them. It's like frog legs; I know they are good and that they are considered gourmet treats by a lot of people … but they still look too much like what they used to be. Ew!

Rand laughed when he saw my reaction and said he'd just have to eat them all himself and I said he could go right on ahead and do so. Man! I had to rig up a skirt for the jar so I wouldn't have to look at them every time I open the pantry door. I might eat them if it came down to starving or not … but I'd sure have to do a lot of thinking on it first.

.

 **September 28** **th** – Been too busy and tired to write in the journal at night. Melly didn't get to come over as Roo has some kind of ear thing going on. Before Clyde left I gave him a small bottle of olive oil and told him to have Melly warm it up to a little over body temp and put some drops in the ear that is bothering Roo. Hopefully that will soothe him if nothing else.

I could do with a bit of soothing myself. Rand made me lock everything up, including the animals and he walked to the end of our road and caught a lift with Ram. There was trouble overnight at the makeshift distribution point that had been set up for people to come look through the stuff off the trains. They were upset that no food was brought in and then started fighting over what was. A lot of damage has been done and when they turned on the military guys who were just trying to keep the unrest from spreading they got more than they bargained for. There are a lot of dead and wounded but the meanness has spread out and the military was asking for community volunteers to try and get it re-contained. He's been gone all morning and I've been sitting here at the dormer window keeping watch.

I was OK until I heard a girl's scream a few minutes ago. It shouldn't have been so loud. I know it is still far enough away that it isn't on our forty but something isn't right. Dang it, there it goes again and it is closer this time, like the sound is channeling down through our road. Gotta go, hopefully I won't have a story to tell Rand when he gets home.


	49. Chapter 48

Chapter 48

 **September 29** **th** – I know Rand is going to have my tail but once I heard the screaming on our property I felt I had a responsibility to find out what was going on. I couldn't just ignore it.

I debated what to take with me into the woods. I'm still not comfortable with the shotgun so I took my rifle. It may be small but so am I and with my improved aim I figured it would be as effective. Yeah, I can hear Rand squawking about that now so I'll leave that bit out when I explain things. I took the Smith and Wesson but I also took the Mark III. I know I'm going to catch heck about that too … assuming Rand notices. I also took my trusty big screwdriver and the wire cutters. I made Woofer stay inside, he was no more pleased with me than Rand is going to be but he still clumps through the bushes too much. He's all attack and no sneak.

I ease out of the house and by the time I get out of bushes around our home site I could hear crying … more like sobbing and pleading for them to not hit her again, she swore there was a house down at the end of the road. I still didn't recognize the voice but I followed the sound. I was using the small deer trail through the trees and then stopped on the house side of the road and easement intersection.

"Hey! Look, there's a planted field here. Maybe the girl is telling the truth."

"Maybe. Take that side and … shut up girl or you'll get more of what I just gave you … take that side and I'll take the princess here and spend a little quality time with her over …"

"You went first last time Hal."

OK, that was all I needed to hear. The girl was curled up on the ground, completely out of my line of fire. There were five men. Not great odds but I intended to make that four right then. Using a tree to steady myself I got "Hal" right square in the chest. And the guy behind him that was too stupid to duck right in the stomach. Two down three to go.

I know I shouldn't be like I am about it. I'm feeling remorseful now, but not guilty. I'm sorry it came down to the way things happened but I'm not sorry that I was assigned the job of bringing some justice to their previous victims. In this life I think sometimes you are the victim, sometimes you are the jury, and sometimes you are the executioner. You can't do the job of the last two without being the first a few times first so that you can have discernment about life and events. Well, I've been on the receiving end more than I'm comfortable with remembering. It doesn't mean that I want to be jury and executioner but it isn't a job I'll walk away from either.

In fact, I couldn't walk away at this point. There were three more bad guys wandering around and I wanted them gone before Rand came home so they couldn't jump him.

One of those guys was smart and took advantage of the fact that I was feeling overconfident. He came in behind me so fast that if I hadn't just bent over to untangle myself from some saw briers he would have taken me right then. I was using the screwdriver to pull the think vines off of my jeans and boots. He came right out of the trees behind me and I only had time to turn towards the attack … with the screwdriver out in front of me the guy impaled himself all the way up to the handle.

I don't know who was more surprised me or him. I don't think I hit anything vital but I don't know for sure. God showed him some Mercy though. His eyes rolled up and back and he just sort of slid off the tool and down to his knees and then fell over. He didn't even draw another breath. I didn't mean to do it but it happened. I'm glad he went quick and didn't suffer the way the gut shot guy did.

Now there were only two and they had started running down the road, away from where I was. I couldn't let them get away. They could hang out in the bushes and hurt Rand. I took off running up the road. The handguns were bumping around in the bag on my shoulder with the wire cutters. The screw driver was back in its "holster" on my hip. And the rifle was in my hands. I was doing a fair imitation of the way I had seen guys running with guns in those war movies. And then I went down, nearly on my face.

The girl had grabbed me by the ankle. I nearly kicked her in the face until I turned around and saw who it was. Even with her face tear-stained and snot covered she still looked pathetic and pretty. "Don't leave me!"

"Dang it Cassie, let go. I've got to get those guys!"

"Don't … "

But I didn't have time to listen to her. I was up and running again. They were running down the straight section right after the main gate. I used the fence post to steady me because I was breathing so hard. All I did was wing one of them before they turned the corner down the oaks. I didn't have long so I really started running all out went down on my knee as I turned the dog leg and got one of them in the back. But the other was still running. I was so out of breath that I considered … only for a second … letting him go but the thought of Rand helped me to suck it up and run full tilt again. He was way down the road by the time I reached the dog leg by the gully and I was breathing so hard that I had a hard time getting a shot. In fact I completely missed the first time. Then the guy turned around and took a couple of wild shots at me. That steadied me and I just thought "big red can, 30 yards, sun straight overhead and wind out of the north." I was a little high and the damage I did meant that it only took one bullet … my last … to do what I felt I had to do.

I knew I wouldn't have much time so instead of going back for Cassie I ran up and drug that guy's body over and into the dense brush and pine trees on the other side of the gully. Only after I was sure that I had camouflaged the body did I set off back for Cassie. I had four more bodies to be responsible for but first I wanted to get her to help me. Running in boots with all the gear I had on was nowhere near as easy as the movies make it look.

I came back but no Cassie, and then I heard a scream back towards the house. That got my heart pumping again. When I got there I found that Cassie had tried to go in the house. Baaad move. Woofer let her know she wasn't welcome. I got him calmed down but Cassie is still scared of him, which may not be such a bad thing now that I'm thinking about it. It keeps her out of places I don't want her to go. Given her previous actions I'm keeping her out of as much of our business as possible.

I made her help me drag the other four guys' bodies to the other side of the gully as well. She complained the whole time. It wasn't exactly what I had planned on doing with my day either but geeze Louise. She wanted me to take her back to her grandfather's right there and that is when I put my foot down and her hard head met my immovable rock.

Cassie Henderson is a freaking spoiled brat! Whew! Wish I could say it to her face … and I just might if I'm cooped up with her for too much longer.

I really want to like Cassie if for no other reason than because of Mr. Henderson but the girl has rocks in her head and is what my Daddy would have called near next to useless. Apparently she didn't think her grandfather's order that everyone stay inside the main perimeter wall that they've built applied to her … she's not "everybody," she's Ms. Cassie Henderson, no one's rules but her own exist in her universe. Puh … leeze!

She takes a horse out even after she was told not to, goes out of sight of the ranch, and then the dummy gets captured while flirting with a stranger … "but he was so cute." And what does the Ninny do then?! Leads them right to my place; I could slap her for that alone. The reason she screamed is because one of the men took off his belt and whipped her when he thought she was lying about a house being down our road. They hadn't made it to the easement field yet and with everything so over grown and still green the wagon hadn't made much difference in how unused the road tends to look.

Once she was inside our house she calmed down considerably but she sure didn't stop complaining and worse, she started ordering me around. She sure doesn't know me very well. She wanted a bath, I handed her a bucket and told her to pump her some water. She wanted a hot bath, I told her too bad, I wasn't firing up the stove to roast us alive in the house. After the bath she wanted clean clothes and make up, I told her no makeup as I don't have any and the only thing I had for her was a sundress since she was nearly six inches taller than me an about half my size on her northern end if you know what I mean. If she wanted her own clothes she was going to have to wash them out and hang them to dry. She wanted me to do her hair; I told her I was on watch.

It went on like that for the rest of the afternoon and evening. All I could think was, "Rand please come home before I kill you ex-girlfriend's best friend and start a feud with the biggest landowner left in the county." After I fed her a dinner of the beans that I had been cooking in the ground since first thing in the morning and it got dark she finally wound down. She wanted to use the wind up lamp but I told her, "No, we might need it if Rand comes in late or your grandfather shows up." She definitely does not like being on the receiving end of the word no. And she is too old to pout. It's not near as cute an expression as she seems to think it is.

Yesterday was even worse. She didn't like grits; too bad, that's what there is. She objected to bread and jam at lunch with fresh fruit; she wanted yogurt and a salad. She was bored, I told her she was more than welcome to help me sweep and mop the floors and all my other chores. For dinner she wanted steak and potato; that time I laughed in her face and asked her what planet she had been living on for the last few months.

She didn't help with the dishes, she didn't make her bed, she didn't clean up the bathroom behind her. She'd get scared every time I left the house to take care of the animals and didn't want me to go. Twice she tried to lock me out of the house so I started making her go with me with Woofer to guard the porch. She wasted more water than you would imagine and food too which is why I wasn't going to much trouble … that and I wasn't very hungry with Rand not home.

She tried the pouty face thing again to get the lamp when she went to bed and I think I finally started wearing on her as much she is on me.

Today she's been giving me paybacks. I've heard lots of stories about how good Rand and Julia had been together, about all their friends and how much fun they all had … together … close friends … no strangers allowed. Yeah, subtle she is not no matter what she thinks. And I had to listen to the snippy comments about how awful and selfish it was to bring babies into the world the way it is now … and then a fake exclamation of surprise over the baby furniture and a giggle and asking me conspiratorially if I was gonna have a baby and was that why Rand and I had had to get married.

For that one I brought up her good friend Julia's pregnancy and her logic and justification actually made my mouth hang open. She, Julia got pregnant before things got like they are now so it was all OK and she was just so excited for her. She didn't like me coming back with the question of whether Julia had ever revealed who she thought the baby's father was since it obviously wasn't Rand. And when she tried to make out like it could be Rand after all I told her that even Julia admitted that it wasn't Rand and counting back she would have gotten pregnant before Rand even came home from college. I can't believe she didn't see that one coming but she acted like I was hurting her feelings by using logic and truth.

For the last couple of hours she's been getting louder and louder about the fact that I need … no, I must … take her back to her grandfather. When she started "musting" me I pulled a naughty and gave her a sleeping pill I told her was a Tylenol for her headache. She's crashed on the sofa and I'm sitting here at the front window praying that Rand is safe. I'm nearly tempted to leave and take Julia to her grandfather just as an excuse to look for news of Rand.

 **September 30** **th** – Call me over protective but he isn't getting out of that bed for at least twenty-four hours if I have to do some like tie him down. I told him so and even though his face was so tired looking he got a guy grin on his face that made me throw a pillow right at his head. Of course then he started coughing again and it is a really nasty cough too. Thankfully I am dusting the cobwebs off of the corners of my brain and remember Momma making me anise tea with honey when I would get a chest cold. I looked it up in Momma's medicine notebook and sure enough anise tea is used as an expectorant.

I took two teaspoons of crushed aniseed and poured a cup of boiling water over it and left it to steep for fifteen minutes. I strained out the aniseed and then added enough honey that Rand would drink it. Between the heat of the hot water and the licorice of the anise next coughing fit he had he started coughing up blobs of junk out of his chest. Nasty but at least he doesn't sound so much like a freight train any more.

Mitch brought him back last night and took Cassie off my hands. When Cassie started tuning up to complain Mitch shut her up, "Knock it off Cass. You've gone too far this time. Your grandfather has been worried sick … literally worried sick. Tia Cia as well. We wasted valuable time looking for you and two of our men got hurt because of it … Jeffers might not make it and he has two young children with no family left to take them in if he dies. Get on this horse, now." I didn't give her another thought after they left though I've had time to do it today.

I thought Rand was only over tired last night and suffering from the effects of having to deal with all that has been going on. He wouldn't settle until he made sure that I'd been able to take care of the animals and then as I fed him some bread and jam for dinner … he didn't want anything else … I had to tell him about the five men and what I had done. Rather than being upset he said, "I wish I had been here Babe but I had to trust that you could handle things. And you did."

When he leaned on me to give me a hug … and I got beyond how ripe he smelled … I heard his chest rattle for the first time. First I needed to get him comfortable and I heated water for a bath and put some peppermint bath salts in there. Rand doesn't much like baths, he prefers hanging a bucket up and taking a shower. To egg him on a little bit I told him it was paybacks for leaving me alone with Cassie for so long.

"That bad?"

"It was horrible. Detestable. Horrifying beyond imagination."

"Ok, ok … I'll take a bath and soak but you have to scrub my back."

"Gee, you drive such a hard bargain."

I washed his hair and gave him a trim without him realizing it until I was half way finished. It isn't something to brag about but at least the hair is off his neck and he doesn't resemble a sheep dog. He told me what had happened to keep him away for so long.

Things are coming unglued and we are getting hit from all sides. Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Valdosta and all points north; they seem to be converging in different places looking for an ever shrinking amount of resources, trying to force the government to do something they have no way of doing, just wandering around aimlessly with no real plan following whoever is the loudest or most charismatic leader at the moment. Rand called them sheeple. But when you have that many, even disorganized as they are, you are going to have trouble. The first day he was away it was the worst. The second day the "leaders" of the various groups were captured or killed, yesterday was mostly something he called mop up.

"Even though they don't want the responsibility, the military has had to build a couple of large holding centers and dump anyone they catch causing problems into the fenced in enclosures. From there they've started busing them to St. George Island. There is only one bridge on and off the barrier island that now has several guarded gates being erected along its length, the island is covered in vacation rental places so they aren't exposed to the elements, and if they put their mind to it they can probably make a pretty good living there by fishing and what have you. The military is through messing around and court dates are going to have to wait. It will be a little like Australia was for the UK back during the Colonial period. You've heard of that?"

"Rand! Oh … you were trying to be funny. Yes, I know what you mean. Criminals, dissidents, etc. were sentenced to exile in Australia if they messed up in the UK."

"Close enough. It is going to be hard at first but at least they'll stand more of a chance than if they were sentenced to a firing squad which is what some commanders and citizen groups have been talking about doing. Everyone has agreed to try the barrier island route first or if the person is a known felon then they'll be put on barges that have been anchored off the coast. That is going to be a bleak life but at least it is a life."

Rand was so tired he was starting to repeat himself. I got him out of the tub and up to the dormer room and tucked in bed. He was telling me that he had stayed with Ram's unit up until it got recalled to base. Ram had asked permission to take Rand home but permission was denied, there had been an attack on their base and everyone was needed to put things back to right. When Rand saw Ram's face and remembered that Sherri was probably on the base he told him not to give it another thought. About an hour later as Rand made it to Lee, Florida and then got a lift as far as River Road.

He started walking again and was a couple of miles further when he ran into Mitch who had come to collect some horses that had gotten loose from a string of them that Bradley and Hoss had brought for a "calvary" group to use. It took them a while, people kept stopping them for news, but Rand finally made it home. Last night was the first night he had slept under a roof since the morning he left.

A couple of hours after he went to bed he started coughing and about two this morning he started running a fever. I don't know if it is a relapse of the virus or if this is just paybacks his body is giving him for sleeping outside for a couple of nights. Either way, like I said, he is in bed until I say so.

Actually he slept off and on all day and now he is asleep again and I hope for the night. His color is better … I think that is what you call it when somebody that has been sick and pale looks more natural anyway … and his fever is gone. He ate better today too. I made some garlic broth and he said that opened up his sinuses about as well as the anise tea did for his chest. It has cooled down the last couple of nights so I don't have the fan turned on.

While Rand slept off and on today I did laundry and picked more beans and made some more applesauce. All the talking about babies that Cassie did made me wonder just what are the babies around here going to eat when there isn't any formula or baby food to buy. I looked in Momma's notes but didn't find anything on babies, I guess because she was through, but I did find something in one of the dehydrator books. You can dry veggies to the crispy critter phase and then when you need baby food you can put them through a grinder to make a powder and then reconstitute the powder into pureed baby food. Fruits are just easier to can in their pureed form from what I understand which is one of the reasons that I'm doing more applesauce. The other reason is that applesauce can replace some of the fat that is called for in some cakes and stuff. Better to be prepared with an alternative before you need it I think.

I tried a different bread recipe today. I found it in Momma's files and the name is what got me to try it. It is called Spinster's Bread. You take two eggs, one quart of flour, two tablespoonfuls of shortening, one tablespoonful of salt, one teacupful of yeast sponge (which was an experiment I started the other day), and one cup of sweet milk (made from the whole powdered milk. Mix into a soft dough, let rise; mold into loaves, let rise until light then bake it.

I needed to heat some more water for Rand to take another soak in the tub since he'd been sweating so much and because I needed to wash the sheets off of the bed (clean Rand on clean sheets made him a happy boy) so I baked the bread in the princess. I just wish it was going to be cool enough to use that stove year around. It is really easy to bake in. Or, maybe what I could do is keep my bread baking down to one day a week and heating the house up one day a week might not be too bad. Hmmm … I think I'm going hunting in my Momma's books and see if any of them say what pioneer women did about that.

 **October 1** **st** – New month, new lesson; don't handle hot peppers without gloves on and keep your hands away from your eyes too. Don't ask me how I know. You don't really want to know. Those jalapenos were worse than any onions I've ever chopped. But I got a bunch of half pints of canned peppers and some jelly jars of jalapeno jelly.

 **October 2** **nd** – There weren't any church services yesterday. Assuming circumstances allow Pastor Ken, who came by yesterday making his rounds, said that an organized service will be held on the second and forth Sunday each month. People are free to hold a home church meeting if they wish, in fact he is encouraging it.

When the Pastor listened to Rand's chest he shook his head and then asked me what I had done to help him break the congestion up. I told him about the anise tea and he said to be careful with that because too much could be bad, especially for children, because it has a narcotic effect. I told him he had one cup in the morning and then one cup in the early afternoon and that was all.

The pastor is apparently familiar with a lot of home remedies since he's been serving in the community for a number of years, especially amongst the older folks who all but survive on stuff like that some times. He was heading back to Momma O's so I sent him with a bucket of apples, a bag of beans, and some jalapenos. I figure they can work any fussbudgeting amongst themselves. Pastor Ken is the closest thing to a doctor we have access to and when he stops by I like to feed him or at least send him off with something useful. He is also our preacher and we are responsible for supporting him so he can serve the community. Not everyone can so those of us that can need to step up.

After the pastor left I asked Rand who was sitting in the rocker getting his wind back after dealing with the animals, if what I was doing was OK. He said, "Honey, you do exactly what you feel led to do. You feel that way for some reason and Ken seems grateful now rather than embarrassed, like he feels like someone appreciates the position he is in. Momma O will make sure he gets fed and the donations will make sure he isn't a burden on their household."

It makes me feel better to know he wasn't upset that I did it without asking him. It also makes me feel better to see that Rand's appetite is coming back. For dinner tonight I used a quart of ground venison that I put up last time and made sloppy joes; instead of buns I had to put it on biscuits but it was still good. I don't have any fresh potatoes to make fries with but I'm still pulling purple top turnips and I made turnip fries. I'd run across it in my Momma's notes. She got the recipe from someone named "Night Walker." I presume that means she got the recipe online someplace. Momma had friends all over.

To make the turnip fries you peel and slice the turnips just like you would potato fries. Then you toss them in olive oil and sprinkle with the same seasonings you like on your fries. I'm old-fashioned and just like salt and pepper on mine. Then you bake them until crispy … about fifteen minutes in a 375 degree oven.

To go with the fries I also fried some cucumber strips. Basically you cut a cucumber into long then strips and bread it on both sides with your favorite breading mix. I'm partial to flour mixed with salt and pepper but I've also done this with cornmeal at the diner on fish fry Fridays. Then you fry the floured strips in a skillet. The cleaner the grease the fresher the taste but one of the guys that came in regularly always asked us to fry some up with bacon grease left over from breakfast. He called them heart attack salad sticks.

Speaking of meat and fat, Rand likes the way the ham and stuff looks in the can that I did. Rand smoked the meat for flavor and then we spent a day cutting it and canning it. It doesn't look very pretty to me but Rand said compared to some he'd seen done there was hardly any wastefulness to what was in the jar at all. Whoever heard of getting romantic feelings while standing in a pantry full of jars. I feel silly but it makes me feel good when he says things like that. He said if we can put off butchering until December … which is what Uncle George is shooting for apparently … we'll be able to "country cure" some meats so that they can keep without refrigeration.

"Uncle George sure is glad he ordered in bulk last time he got his supplies. We've got plenty of what we need for a while … maybe two, three years or more depending on the animal situation and how much butchering for fresh use we have to do. We've always dried cured but Mr. Coffey was mentioning that there is a wet cure for doing pork that the poor folks used to use. I'll have to ask him if he can remember it."

"Oh, you've seen him? How's he doing? Did he get the rest of the sorghum in and the syrup finished up?"

"Yeah. It's a good thing his grandson and his family showed up. Brendon and I had a hard time getting everything done and he's got about ten acres of corn that he is going to need to bring in too. Most of his animals are free-range these days so the corn will probably go into his family's belly. Our corn is looking pretty good but I sure hope my feed holds out. Which reminds me, it doesn't look like you used as much as I expected while I was gone."

"I fed Hatchet, Lou, and Bud like you told me to but the flock and the goats I've been giving my gardening scraps and they seem to do just fine. We might need to move the goats again in the next couple of days but they don't seem to be hurting. Fraidy and Woofer eat whatever they can catch or kitchen scraps."

"What kind of garden scraps are you feeding them that they aren't wanting feed?!"

"Oh anything that I used to throw on the compost pile. They really liked the green bean stuff and the chickens were in hog heaven over the cantaloupe rinds. They also like the apple peels, cores, and the chunks I have to cut out. "

"OK, that's fine just … I'm not criticizing, but do me a favor, keep giving them a little bit of feed until we find a balance between them being totally free range and totally grain fed. Especially don't give them any of the peppers or egg shells."

"I don't want the chickens to turn cannibal! Of course I'm not going to give them the egg shells. And well … I was afraid the peppers would give them a belly ache so I didn't give them that either."

"Good. Look, I know … uh, I didn't hurt your …"

"No. I just wish I wasn't so stupid about all of this stuff and …"

"I don't want to hear that again!"

"Huh?"

"Don't say you're stupid. You're inexperienced and if I'd thought about it we would have gone over it ahead of time. How many eggs are you getting from the hens?"

"Well, only about one or two because Momma Hen and that other broody cranky one want to sit on theirs."

"Sounds like they need more feed. We'll work it out. The hens aren't going to give an egg a day but one every couple of days should be the minimum. And they might be slowing down for the molt season too. I'm not sure, I've never kept bantams. I think they are fairly much like regular sized chickens but I can't say absolutely for certain. Let that broody hen have the next couple and see if she can hatch them but by the end of the month we'll collect everything they make and use them fresh. I don't want to have chicks too far into the cool weather or they'll die."

It's stuff like this I'm grateful that Rand knows. I could figure it out I think but not without a lot of mistakes along the way. And I'd hate to intentionally cause the death of a hen or chick by doing the wrong thing.


	50. Chapter 49

Chapter 49

 **October 3** **rd** – Rand went to sleep really early, sun wasn't even completely down. I think he overdid it. I tried not to be so bossy and bother him after a certain point today but it sure was hard not to say "I told you so." No good could come of that. He was already feeling a little low.

I found out Rand doesn't like to think he has any weakness … or at least any weaknesses that he doesn't already beat himself up over. Uncle George came by today – actually had several people stop by – and I could tell Rand was getting bent out of shape because of the lecture he got about his health and "thinking he is invincible." But Uncle George didn't have to heap coals on top of coals by riding him about other stuff too.

I can see Uncle George's point but I don't think he needed to be quite as rough on Rand as he was. He fussed about Rand not taking it easy and then fussed because of all the things that haven't been done yet … fences put up, pole barn, gates reinforced, green house built, etc. It started hurting my feelings too. I know we have things that need doing but life seems to keep getting in the way.

"And on top of this I hear it was Kiri that had to take care of those men that hurt Cassie Henderson. You and Brendon, always running off to work someplace else when there's work that needs doing at home."

Rand didn't explain or defend himself and I didn't know how to without making things worse. Anyone else I would have popped off at them but I'm trying really hard not to say stuff that could cause problems with Rand's family. After Uncle George delivered his lecture and left – with a bag of apples for Janet and the boys – Rand and I went back to the garden to finish what we'd started first thing this morning. I couldn't stop myself from asking though, "Rand, why was your uncle so … so … ?"

After he sighed he answered, "That's just the way he is. He gets worried and it just comes off like that."

"Well, he doesn't have to be so critical. We've got a lot done that wasn't and … "

"Don't take it personal Babe, he was talking to me."

"I don't care … and that makes it even worse. We're in this together. And what's up with the crack about you and Brendon running around? You were working hard! And it brought in things we didn't have. Doesn't that mean something to him? In case I didn't say it means a lot to me."

That got a smile and he leaned over and kissed me then said, "Uncle George has a full-blown ranch Honey, with a good number of animals. It takes a lot of work. He used to hire experienced ranch hands that helped him out but he can't do that now. A lot of them are dead, gone, or trying to make it on their own places or need to work on their family's places. Look at it this way, when I went off to college he wound up having to hire three different guys to do what I used to do for free … one for morning work, one for evening work, and one who only worked on the weekends or when the other guys needed off. Even if he could find someone these days he can't pay them anything, money is next to useless. Guys smart enough to work a ranch or farm are gathering stuff to do it on their own these days. Even if he could get some live-in help, they're going to want more than room and board and Uncle George figures he's stretched thin enough just feeding everyone he has over there now … and with two babies on the way … "

"Make that three. I guess you weren't listening when he complained that LauraBeth is sick all the time now too."

"Oh Lord, poor Uncle George. Look, the workload is one of the reasons that he is looking to cull some of his animals. He needs to make his herds more manageable with the number of hands he has. The other thing is that he doesn't know whether he is going to be able to feed them or not beyond this winter. He has hay, silage, and feed to make it to spring but after that … who knows?" And with the recent round of illness and no magic cure for Janet … he's worried about the future and it makes him cranky. And let's be honest, there's some truth to his criticism too.

"Rand!"

"Don't go getting upset. I try and take what he says as a constructive critique and not get too awful upset about it. I have been putting off the fence and some of the other projects we talked about. I still haven't built that second smokehouse even though all of the supplies are lying over there in that pile. Now that it isn't in the upper 90s every day I need to start digging fence post holes and setting posts for the heifer and calf to have a place to go during the day. And I need to build real stalls in the barn for bringing them in at night. And I should … "

"And just where does Uncle George expect us to come up with the materials for these projects I'd like to know?"

Rand laughed, "I wished you'd been around the last time Mr. Winston laid into me for being a leech on Uncle George." With a sigh he continued, "I'm going to salvage what supplies I can and after that it may come down to making our own. I want to put a gate at the end of the road and have it open up into that eighty next to us and then fence in that area around the pond. Adding that area to your … ok, ok, our … acreage shouldn't be a problem. I talked to Mr. Henderson about it and he says for a fact the whole branch of the family that used to own that land are dead or so long gone that they might as well be for the foreseeable future. If we fence it in we'll get pasture and a year-round water source for the animals to go with all of the scrub and palmetto."

"Will that be enough to keep the cows fed?"

"Sure. Florida cows used to survive on scrub oaks and palmetto alone in the early days and we'll have hay from what you call the hayfield to supplement them and the other animals. And if the oats don't make seed heats we can make oat hay out of it. If I have to I'll find an area that has gone to seed, mow it, then bring it home and sprinkle it all over and hopefully we'll get some seeded pasture that way. Getting that fence done is going to be work but that old hand auger out in the barn should help."

"Auger. Oh, is that the thing that looks like a cross between a jackhammer and a giant drill bit?"

"Yep, that's the one. If the sand is too soft and dry I might still wind up doing some of the holes with a post hole digger. First I've got to get the posts."

He was doing that very thing this afternoon when first Ram and then Mr. Henderson and Mitch Peters came by. I asked Ram about his wife and he said Sherri had come out OK and then he went across the field to talk to Rand. It was funny to see Ram riding a mule. He said he was a Belgian mule and that if I thought seeing a guy in uniform on riding a mule was funny, I should see them moving supplies down the interstate using donkey trains. I believe that would be an unusual sight but doesn't really surprise me. Donkeys used to be raised as companion animals all over in this area of the state and now you can see people in little donkey pulled carts when they come to church. Momma O has a pet donkey she called Beulah and it wears an old straw hat to keep the sun out of its eyes.

Mr. Henderson came by not too long after Ram left to talk to Rand. I was starting herb seeds that Momma O gave me in some pots. With a nod of his head he sent Mitch off to talk to Rand. I didn't think anything of it at first and offered him some tea up on the porch.

"Much obliged. Girly I … well, I came by to thank you … for what you did for Cassie."

I told Mr. Henderson people were making too much of it. I didn't do it because it was Cassie, I did it because it was the right thing to do and because I was there and could.

"Ayup, figured you'd say something of the sort. But now I gotta ask you something and I'd like the full truth of it if you please. I need to know what happened, in detail, and no making excuses for anybody, not even Cassie."

I told him and didn't sugar coat anything. He nodded his head and looked off towards the tree tops. "Well, I'm sorry for the trouble Cassie caused you … no … don't try to say it wasn't a bother because … well, I know you didn't complain or even say anything about it but I know my Cassie. I've known for a few years she's spoiled. Didn't want to see it at first and when I did didn't think there was any harm in it. She was all I had left of my kids … lost my daughter and both my sons before I should have, lost their mother too. I just …"

I didn't know what to say. This was family business and I wasn't used to people just saying stuff all out in the open like that.

"Things are going to have to change. World isn't what it was not that long ago. I figure I'll have Cassie with me one way or the other a long time. Mitch would be a good man for her if she'd just … but she's still more little girl playing at being grown up than actually being a grown woman. And thankfully Mitch knows that. But a man like him won't wait forever. I've asked him to consider it and he is. I need someone I can trust to take over things when I go. I believe Mitch is that man and I'd like to make sure that Cassie is taken care of at the same time. But that's neither here nor there at the moment. I just want you to know that anything you need … anything … you come to me first."

"Mr. Henderson … "

"Naw, just keep it between us. Your man has a lot of pride and I'd ruther …. Well, I was his age once and I know how bad it can hurt to have to ask. If it ain't handled right he can be made to feel small and that takes some getting over. Mitch is talking to him now. I'm opening up some field next to me but it is all cross fenced in five and ten acre lots. I've got posts and fencing to the rafters in one of the sheds now, if he takes them off my hands he'd be doing me a favor. You see what I mean?"

I sure did. I still say I didn't do anything big and that it wouldn't have mattered who the girl was but I wasn't going to turn him down either. Rand needed help and Mr. Henderson needed to help … hand in glove fit and everyone's male pride was saved.

After all three men left Rand came back and was swinging me around the front yard like a silly man. We were both so dizzy we wound up on the ground laughing. "Oh Sugar, did Mr. Henderson say anything?"

I crossed my fingers and said, "Something about him needing you to do him a favor … his shed was full?"

"Oh yeah. This will work out perfect. I still have a heck of a lot of holes to dig but at least I won't be breaking my back trying to dig up those posts to start with. I'm beat just getting the five I did manage to pull up. What's for supper?"

Supper was venison shepherd's pie made with some canned venison steaks, fresh and dried veggies, and mashed potato flakes made up and mixed with some powdered cheese to make a thick cover on top.

While we ate we discussed what all we had planted today. I got four veggies in the ground: Chinese cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, and spinach. Tomorrow Paulie is going to deliver some fifty or so strawberry plants from Momma O. I hadn't realized it but she made a supplemental income by selling strawberry plants seasonally at flea markets. She has an abundance right now so Paulie and his dad (the other brother is in a wheelchair with developmental issues) agreed to trade Rand some of the plants in exchange for mowing their hayfield. Rand is going over there tomorrow after lunch but Momma O wants me to have the plants first thing so I can get them in the ground "where they belong."

Rand has the first level of the strawberry tower built in the center of the garden. He made a big "O" with two strips of metal flashing staked so they wouldn't come apart. In the bottom of the "O" he put a layer of gravel and on top of that we put the richest dirt we could find on the property that we mixed with some of the compost I made using the barrel composter Rand built (that thing works a lot faster than the compost pile does). Tomorrow we'll add two or three more levels in concentric but smaller "O"s until we have all the strawberry plants in the ground.

I planted more herbs than anything. Rand said after he gets more of the other projects out of the way he'll help me build an herb garden. For now I have everything in pots: anise, basil, borage, caraway, chervil, chives, coriander, dill, fennel, horehound, lemon balm, lovage, marjoram, tarragon, mints, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme. I planted a raised bed of garlic out in the garden and I also took some of the ginger roots that I had and am trying to sprout those too like I learned at the ladies' social.

The other thing we are doing tomorrow is to make "manure tea." Sounds absolutely disgusting but Rand swears it will do the garden good. I hope he is right.

He just rolled over and asked me why I'm not in bed yet. Guess that is my hint to turn the light off.

 **October 5** **th** – I've still got the shakes, Rand too a little bit I think. He won't let me out of the house and not too far out of his sight when he is inside.

Yesterday was a wonderful day. The sky was crystal clear blue. The humidity was low. And we got everything accomplished we wanted to. Paulie brought over the strawberry plants and Rand said but a little layer of hay so that when the berries make they won't be sitting right on the dirt. I picked nearly a bushel of pole beans, cooked a big pot that Rand and I ate on all afternoon, gave some to Brendon who had come by to escape his dad for a few hours and who helped Rand get the post holes lined up and marked, and baked a pan of cornbread and two more loaves of bread while I heated water in the reservoir of the princess.

We went to bed and then about midnight or so Woofer went crazy. I'm writing it all in a rush but it actually took a lot of time for things to happen. We got the shutter open enough for us to see that someone was trying to break into the barn and when daylight came we also saw that they had ripped up most of the pole beans and stepped all over in the garden. I don't think I've lost anything except the rest of the pole beans but they were nearly finished making though it would have been nice to get every last pod. They also turned over the dehydrator and cracked the Plexiglas on the bottom panel. The goats were asleep in their pen and I guess the people never realized they were there in the dark.

The moon was not full but not far from it and in the clearing around the house they were completely visible to us. I finally grabbed Woofer around the snout and told him he better hush or I was going to lock him in the bathroom. From there on out all he did was the quiet growl then snort woof that dogs do when they are just this side of chewing somebody's leg off.

Then listened to them quietly cursing when they couldn't get into anything; that's when they started tearing things up. Rand was going downstairs to open one of the windows to get a better shot when I watched one of them light something up and throw it at the side of the barn. It lit the grass around the barn on fire but not the barn itself which is built to match the house … brick on block and both also have metal roofs. But a grassfire would eventually catch other stuff on fire and we couldn't allow that.

I go tearing down the stairs to see Rand sliding out a window at the back of the house. There is gunfire and sounds of a scuffle and fighting … I don't really know how long it went on. Then it gets quiet and I'm thinking that Rand is going to come back at any moment. But instead I hear, "Whoever's in the house … you want this dude to stay alive for much longer you come on out."

I have no idea what made me do what I did. I don't know if I need to grow up or start thinking things more thoroughly but all I could do was be furious that they were going to hurt Rand. I slid out the same window that Rand had with my rifle and the Smith and Wesson and a pocketful of ammo for each. I had been sleeping in cut off fleece shorts and it didn't take long for the skeeters to find me but I didn't realize it until later.

The moon was just as bright but I knew the yard a whole lot better than the invaders did. And that is exactly how I was thinking of them … invaders in home, in our sanctuary. They may not have been in our house but they were still in what we considered part of our home. I was creeping around the house listening to Rand shout, "No! Don't listen to them! Don … argh!" They had hurt Rand to shut him up.

I saw her standing in the shadows, looking towards the house with the gun raised. I could tell by her expression that the plan wasn't to let Rand and I live no matter what they were saying. There, leaning against the a tree was one of the last of the metal U fence posts we had. It wasn't near as hard as it should have been. I picked it up, came up behind her, and chunked it down on her so that the spade part of the post came right down on her head. She dropped like a silent stone.

I walked the perimeter and saw one more and gave him the same treatment but he was a little noisier when he fell.

"Bob!"

Bob wasn't answering and I knew that I might have overplayed my hand so I went to one knee just like Rand had been teaching me, raised the rifle and started firing even though I was more scared than I wanted to admit that I was going to hit Rand. As Rand went down he grabbed his gun back from his captor and turned around and started firing.

But, unlucky for me there had been a third person hiding in the bushes. How I missed him I don't know. Probably that overconfidence thing again. He grabbed me from behind but my adrenaline was up and I started fighting right away, never giving the guy a chance to get a good hold one me. He pulled a knife at some point and I felt a nasty burning across my back. I threw my straight back and caught him in the mouth and he turned loose of me. A black shadow tore across the yard and straight into the stranger but a yelp quickly followed and Woofer was thrown in the bushes. But the dog tried to come back only, "Stop Woofer! Get back!" Bang, Bang, Bang.

Rand, bruised and bloody from his own fight had come up. "Rand! Are they all … "

"Two of them took off on horses down the road. Are you OK, I want to secure these other horses."

After my nod he ran to grab the horses that were pulling at their reins where they had been tied to a tree right outside our home site. He put them in the corral after stripping them of their riding gear. He'd already stamped the fire out but I got water from the rain barrels and poured buckets on the still steaming grass just to be safe. The first woman I had hurt was still breathing so Rand tied her to a tree but all the other men … four of them … were dead and Rand put them in a pile in the yard. We had been at this hours … the moon had gone down and the sky had gotten that weird color right before the first real light starts to brighten things up … when reaction set in and I got the heaves. I puked in the bushes, something you'd figure I'd be over by now, and then stumbled backwards and hit a tree with my back. I always try really hard not to curse, Daddy told me one time he would know if I did and it has stuck with me even though he hasn't been around for a long time and I might as well be all grown, but I sure said one then.

"Kiri! When did this happen?!"

"I don't know I guess when I was fighting with that guy"

It hadn't really been anything but sore up to that point but suddenly it hurt like salt on a paper cut. It hurt so bad I wanted to puke again. As the sun rose Rand got be back in the house and to master bathroom. My dark t-shirt had hidden things and the dark short had soaked up what I thought was sweat. With the light of day I could see Rand didn't look so good either. He had a couple of nicks and his face was splotchy where he'd been nearly strangled. His clothes were torn and a mess too and we both stank … of guns, sweat, blood and nasty stuff that happens when people die.

We both cleaned up as best we could. I was lying across the bed in nothing but a towel around my waist while Rand cleaned the cut on my back trying really hard not to cry. I know it sounds like I'm a real wuss, always puking and crying or trying not to puke or cry, but that's just the way things hit me. I'm fine while something is happening but afterwards all the adrenaline is like a poison and I have to vent it somehow whether I want to or not.

Woofer, who had been playing guard the whole time, came to hyper alert and growled deep in his chest and took off for the door. Rand grabbed his rife, and in nothing but a pair of loose jeans took off after the dog.

"Joiner! Call this dog off! Yo, Joiner, you in there?!"

It was Hoss and Bradley. If Mitch had been with them it might have been Ok. I was trying to get off the bed and cover myself … and not having very good luck … when Rand ran back inside and said, "You stay put! Don't you move! I'm going to see if Pastor Ken can come out here or how soon. There's been trouble all over."

So I stayed put and believe it or not dozed for a bit. I came to when a wash cloth was rubbed across my face, but it wasn't Rand. "Easy chica. Poor Rand is in a state. The preacher man is away tending a family that got burned out over on River Road. Oh the trouble the night brought us all. It is terrible. Elogie al buen Dios that He was with you. So many dead, so many … and the count is not yet finished."

"Who?! Oh no, who?!"

"Easy sweet girl, easy. I should not have told you but, you would have found out soon enough. They tried to come behind us but did not think that our numbers could possibly be true and sent not enough. We have a few injured but none to death. Young Jeffers even took a turn for the better which is a strange blessing for such an event. Two families out on River Road were cut down, another burned out. The Harbinger family lost a barn and some livestock but fought off their attackers from coming in the house itself. Rand's tio … the one called George … they were attacked but did not count on some surprise that the son-in-law Bill brought against them. The Winston's were not so lucky; the mother had another attack and no one knows what to do for her. Your friend … Ram Diaz … oh mi calidad … were he not married and I thirty years younger. He and some militares are out rounding up the dead and dying of the oh so bad people to take them away. I am going to give you something to drink and you will feel soñoliento. I want you to relax and not move so much until the preacher man can see you."

I did sleep for a while, maybe an hour and a half, but woke when I felt my back being tugged on. "You're hurting her!"

"Rand I'm sorry. If I could to this without hurting her I would. Just hold her so she doesn't jerk. The quicker I get this done the better it will be for her."

Argh! Superglue in a deep paper cut. Man that hurt. That is literally what Pastor Ken did on the deep end of the cut. It hadn't done much damage and he really didn't want to sew me up with something he would just have to cut out later so on the end that was the worst he used super glue to hold the edges together to keep them from ripping apart at the least provocation.

After the pastor left to see about some other injuries Rand helped me dress and then locked me in and told me that he had to go check on his uncle. He was torn and feeling guilty … guilty if he stayed, guilty if he went. I finally convinced him by promising him I wouldn't even open a door or window.

He was gone a couple of hours and was very grim when he came back. I wanted to go out and try and clean up the yard, Ram and his "militares" had come and gone some time after I had drank the nasty stuff that Tia Cia had given me and I was brooding about the torn up garden and wanting to see what could be salvaged. Rand wouldn't hear of it.

Rand dragged the pole bean vines to the summer kitchen and then went and picked anything that looked like it couldn't wait, mostly just some lemon cucumbers that I eventually sliced and tossed into a salad that we nibbled on throughout the remainder of the day. We sat in the floor of the summer kitchen and pulled the beans that were salvageable and the rest went into the goat pen.

While we sat Rand told me what he had seen and heard. "Uncle George and them made out OK; front gate is messed up but that was more from what Bill threw at them than anything else. He chucked an incendiary grenade through the window of the suburban they were driving. That was a hot mess. Mrs. Winston is … I don't know what she is. JR says his mom has had some kind of breakdown. One of Ron Harbingers aunts has volunteered to come stay there and help out for as long as needed."

"What about the Harbinger place? And .. and Julia?"

"They lost a barn, two cows, and some chickens but they'll survive it. They've got an older barn they can use; not as pretty but twice as big and it has a loft. Ron got a little singed around the edges but nothing serious. Julia … I don't know. Ron's aunt says she's OK but there doesn't seem to be much love lost there if you know what I mean."

"What started this? How many of them were there and how did they get so organized that they would hit us all at once?"

"Ram says they are still putting it together and the commander has promised to share information just as soon as he can figure it out himself. But, looks like some overlord wannabees that got burnt off their survival retreat decided to move south and take over a new area … but they needed resources and they thought we were plums to be plucked. That commander of Ram's is … well, I wouldn't want to be his enemy that's for sure. Word has gone out that legitimate people better find a hole because tomorrow they plan on tearing this area up and anyone that can't prove they are a resident with legitimate reason to be out and about better plan on learning to fish 'cause they'll be heading straight for St. George."

"But what about the wounded? You know Pastor Ken won't … "

"Already thought of. The commander has assigned the pastor his own armed escort, a nurse to help him out, and given him some supplies to do the work as he can."

It went like that pretty much the rest of the day. Rand checking on things outside and me staying in. Tomorrow I've got to get out and get the garden watered and check out the orchard and make sure everything else is OK. Rand can't do it all even though he'll try.

We talked around and then about what we'd both done last night … or this morning depending on how you look at it. Rand said that we need to think of ourselves as being in a war where we aren't the aggressors. Like this is our Pearl Harbor or something along those lines. A day that the aggressors are going to regret because we are up in arms and about to take it to them.

I told him I wasn't too sure I liked that idea. "Honey, I didn't grow up thinking I was going to have to fight for my life like this. I can't just … I can't just let this keep happening without trying to fight it. If we let them get any more powerful, one of these days we are going to find out there are too many of them to fight and hold off."

That I could understand … I didn't like it but I understood. I wish the bad guys would just leave us alone. All we want is some peace and security. Is that too much to ask?

Great … Rand has brought me another cup of that nasty tea to drink. I'll sign off here because if it was like the other two times I'll barely get the cup finished before I'm out like a light.


	51. Chapter 50

Chapter 50

 **October 7** **th** – Yesterday was a miserable day. I was so sore I willingly laid down in the middle of the day. Rand and I were both tense and stressed out. Late in the afternoon we had horses come down the road and we both went to grab our guns but pushed me back down where I had been laying grabbed the shotgun. He was at the door and ready when someone called out, "Yo! We're looking for the Joiner place! Anybody out there? Sgt. Diaz wanted us to stop by and check that you hadn't had many more trouble!"

It was a military patrol. Rand felt them out before inviting them around the blind that is filling in to hide most of the house from the road. I could tell one of the guys was fascinated and just kept looking and looking at the potato vine trellis is had built that was now covered with saw briars and Jessamine vines.

Rand was asking how they things were going while I was moving pretty gingerly to sit in one of the chairs that littered the spaces where the shade was deepest under the trees. They're pretty sure they have rounded up all the folks that caused the bulk of the disturbances.

"A few of them were decently trained and caused us some trouble until we found where they'd stashed most of their women and children. The wind went out of their sails at that point."

Rand asked, "What happens to them now?"

"Don't know for sure. If it wasn't for the kids all of the surviving adults would get dumped on St. George. We got some of our medical people looking for an alternative location. The orphans, and there are quite a few as they've apparently been operating this way without real opposition until this hit this area, might go to the adoption centers that have been set up around the country. Or the med teams might try and process them out to any remaining family. The singles may yet go to St. George. The intact families … well, that's the problems. The social and med teams are trying to keep from traumatizing the kids any more than they already have been."

I asked, "Would you all like some tea? Cookies?"

"Ma'am I wish we could but we're under strict orders not to take anything from locals."

Aside from being ma'amed like that for the first time in my life all I could do was think, "My cooking isn't that bad."

Rand must have read my thoughts. "Easy Honey. Ram told me the commander said it's for everyone's protection. Locals can be confident that he's not going to run roughshod over the third and fourth Amendments and the troops don't have to worry about being put in a position where locals might be looking for favors."

The six men all nodded and one of them added, "And our med team says it will be easier to avert any cross contamination or infections if we keep our food supplies separated as well."

"I guess, but surely y'all can have some water or refill your canteens … water your horses at least. It may be October but it is still a pretty warm day."

Everybody relaxed at that and smiled but I could tell they were still "on duty." Reminded me of how my father would get some times.

Rand asked, "Have you had any troubles with locals?"

"Some. Mostly folks are just scared and angry. They try to make us out to be the police, wanting us to get involved in neighbor squabbles or domestic issues and that's not our job. We've been asked by the higher ups to keep that in mind where possible and to keep our noses out of people's private business as long as it doesn't infringe on our ability to do our assignments. Those violent survivalist types aren't helping the situation any. Word keeps trickling down that a crackdown is coming. I know … I know Mack … Mack here has been educating everything that will listen that … "

Mack broke in, "That's because there is a world of difference between the violent militant groups calling themselves survivalists and legitimate survivalists and preppers. The legitimate ones would be fine for the most part if people would just leave them alone. The others don't practice what they preach with it comes right down to it. Live and let live and Constitutional rights only apply when it's to their benefit. They're stealing resources rather than sticking to abandoned property. If they think they need it or want it, that's justification enough and then … "

"Whoa Mack, you're up on that soap box again and it's gonna get you in trouble one of these days."

Another one of the men said, "Cut him some slack Bruce, you know what happened to his family back in Michigan. That group finally pushed his family off their land and left them with nothing. If that neighborhood of preppers hadn't found them and took them in who knows what would have happened to them, especially his little sister. His prejudices come from experience."

A little more back and forth on the issue and a little more firsthand account of what is going on and then they left leaving a bunch of quiet in their wake as Rand and I tried to think through what we had found out. Rand helped me to get the last batch of jars out of the pressure canner and put it away in the drainer to dry until tomorrow. It's going to be a at least a week before I can lift anything beyond a jar or two at a time. That means even a cast iron skillet of cornbread is a no-no.

Not being able to lift much finally got me to do something I'd been meaning to try. I used to make these at the diner pretty regularly but it had been months and without a press I had to devise another way to make them. I dislike rolling tortillas because I could never get them right for some reason. The tortilla press made everything so easy, but Momma didn't have one … first time I've ever wanted something and couldn't find it in the house someplace. So what I figured out was to use two flat bottomed plates.

Start with two cups of all purpose flour, one quarter cup of lard (or solid vegetable shortening), one half teaspoon of salt, and one half teaspoon of baking powder. Use a sturdy fork to cut the lard into the flour mixture until you get a crumbly meal. If you want to get fancy you can use a pastry knife for this but a fork works just as well and you don't have to dig in the utensil drawer so much. Once you've reached the crumbly stage you are going to slowly add one cup of warm (not hot) water and mix it until you have a soft dough. Knead this for five minutes … no more, no less or you'll have icky tortillas. Make 12 equal sized balls out of the dough for taco sized tortillas or six balls for burrito sized tortillas. Let your dough rest for about twenty minutes covered by a damp towel.

While the dough is resting you need to heat up a cast iron skillet or some kind of griddle. You want it to be dry; "seasoned" is ok but not greasy or sprayed with non-stick spray. I got my two plates ready and then mashed all twelve balls into round shapes an eighth of an inch thick. I left the raw, flat tortillas under the damp towel and then turned over one of the plates I had been mashing with and set it with another clean dry kitchen towel.

You take a raw tortilla out from under the damp towel. Put it on the hot skillet or griddle and dry cook it on each side about one minute. If it puffs up in places just push it back down. The browning will be uneven but that is ok, just don't overcook it. Once both sides are finished put it on another plate under a dry towel to keep it warm while you finish the rest of the tortillas.

Of course I did all this after I had made the filling up. The expression on Rand's face when I called him to come in and eat was priceless. I had made venison casadeerillas … I know that is a silly name but it is what it was called on the diner's menu. It was one of our seasonal items and sold out quick when we had venison in. I shredded some canned venison and using some of the freeze dried cheese (it's not bad, but is better if you melt it or cook it with something else) and some of the jalapenos out of the garden for rand. Spread the meat mixture, top with cheese and peppers and then squish it on the griddle until the cheese melts. Move it to a plate and then cut it in wedges with a pizza cutter and BAM! Good stuff. At least Rand thought so. He sure scarfed it all up. He needs the calories that's for sure. He'd been digging more post holes and setting the posts all by himself.

Today has been a little better. Paul came over before breakfast and asked if we could come over. Momma O wasn't in the best of spirits and his mother was running short of patience with her and Paul and his dad wondered if Rand would hook his mules with theirs and pull the support beam out of an old barn so they could drop it before it fell down on its own.

Rand was a little hesitant at first but Momma O has been good to us and there are times when you just have to take risks and get uncomfortable to help the people you care about. You could see the relief on his face when Rand said we'd be there in an hour. As soon as Paul left Rand looked at me and asked, "You sure you're up for this?"

Getting up on the wagon seat was interesting. Rand stuck a pillow behind my back but by the time we got out to CR49 I was gritting my teeth and holding on to keep from rocking. The roadway was a much smoother ride and I had time to gather my composure before we pulled into Momma O's yard.

We were only there a couple of hours but it was enough. Mrs. Delois got some respite and was able to recharge her batteries and rebalance her temper. Paul and his dad got needed help and didn't have to overextend themselves or their animals, and the job was safer. Rand and I got to repay some good deeds and that made us feel good. I also gained some more tips that I wrote down right away. That tickled Momma O and by the time Rand and I headed home mid-morning, everyone was in a better mood. Momma O gave me a Bible verse to look up – Proverbs 27:17 – she said it is about having good friends. Sometimes I don't know if what she says is a warning or a blessing, she's just like that and then the citations make me think … maybe that's what she's after. Rand said she's been doing that for as long as he's known her.

After we reached the house I needed to lay down for a few minutes but I couldn't stay put for long. For lunch I fixed our last box of store-bought macaroni and cheese and we had some bread and jam to finish filling in the empty corners then Rand left to dig some more holes while I tried to get at least our under things washed and hung out. That bending up and down was not fun.

While I gently grape-stomped the clothes I thought about one of the things that is bothering Momma O. She won't admit to it but she is lonesome. She's very social, like Rand. She can be a little … hmmm, where's that thesaurus … irascible; but she cares very deeply about people. She's used to being involved in a very rich and very busy church life. Having to change when she counted so much of that as part of her personal identity is very difficult for her. Some of the programs she worked in were Women on Missions, Senior Socials, the church nursery, Awanas, community care groups, the local women's league, working at flea markets selling her produce and plants … you name it she seemed to have a finger in it. Now she sits on her porch, few visitors come by. Having the pastor move onto their place has helped Momma O at least as much has it has helped Ken. I may not have the same personality and needs, but I can understand and sympathize with her.

I worry about Rand sometimes. He likes being in touch. He's so happy when people stop by … well, the right kind of people anyway. Raiders don't do him a bit of good. And it does do him good to get out with Brendon even if it has delayed stuff here at home. I don't have a problem with him needing to be around other people besides me. One of the things I love about Rand is he isn't me and that he does the people thing so much better than I do. I have an idea but I need to talk to Pastor Ken about it to see if it is realistic first.

I remember when I was little and all the family would meet at different people's farms or homes. You'd bring a covered dish and show up in your work clothes. Sometimes us kids would have odd jobs we could do and sometimes there would just be a ton of kids to play with. With all hands working the job would get accomplished in a day that would have taken the host family weeks or months (if at all) to accomplish. Usually it had to do with planting or harvesting but I remember one barn raising, a time when we helped my great grandmother's sister pack up and move to town after she broke her hip, and another time we went to Mr. Jimmy's place (my grandparents' neighbor) and helped clear an orchard that had been damaged in an unexpectedly late freeze. Since we all brought food, the host family wasn't burdened and often there was a cook out or bonfire or sing-a-long with instruments after a good day's work.

I sure would like to see Rand have some help with that fence. I bet Ron Harbinger could use some help cleaning up his place after the fire. I bet some of the older folks in the community … or the inexperienced people trying to make a real go of it … could use some help too. It would give us all a chance to exchange information and learn how much we can count on certain people too.

 **October 8** **th** – Not too many at the church service today and there was no socializing but I did have a chance to bring up my idea. I thought I'd made a big flop until an older gentleman I'd never been introduced to laughed out loud and said, "Joiner, you best be glad I'm a good fifty years and some older 'n you or I'd be trying to sweet talk your little filly away to my own kitchen."

Rand, the stinker, came back with, "Well, you might want to rethink that. She kicks."

All the men got a good laugh out of it but I coulda just sunk into the ground. Chauvinism has its place but too much of a good thing is still too much of something.

He teased me all the way home and I finally told him if he didn't want to find out just how hard this filly could kick and how good my aim was he better knock it off. He got another laugh out of that but he did settle down about the filly stuff.

Both of us needed a day to step back and review how things are going. He didn't dig any holes and we ate out of the bean pot I put to cook last night so that I didn't have to do any major cooking except Rand wanted to learn how I made tortillas. He's the type that is fascinated by anything new and likes to at least try it. He may not do it ever again in his life but he can have the satisfaction of saying, "I tried that once."

Next Sunday everyone is going to the Harbingers to help pull down the old barn before a winter storm knocks it over making a worse mess. They'll be a short devotion before the work is started and then we plan on a big stone soup meal and I suggested that if we put extra liquid we could make plenty of dumplings in place of baked bread or cornbread. Momma O smiled at me like I was one of her prized chicks. I told her it was her idea in the first place and that made her blush when all the men started asking if she "was a seein' anyone on the front stoop and if she weren't would she be a interested in it." She flapped her apron at them and told them all to behave before she scared them to death by taking them up on their tomfoolery.

I know that doesn't sound much like a "Day of Rest" but people can rest on Saturday or Monday in remembrance of the Sabbath and we'll still get a devotion on Sunday whether we are in church or not.

Rand will go over to his Uncle George's place this week to help move some bales out of the hay barn and fix a few fences that need it and then Brendon will come over to our place to help plant the posts. Alicia will likely come with him and maybe one or both the boys and we'll get some canning done up together.

As for what we have going on at our place, Rand is dealing with the four horses that the raiders left. No one recognizes the brands on the horse so they're ours but that means that the feed we have is going to go a lot faster than we had expected it to. We really don't need all four horses but three of them are mares (the fourth is a gelding) and Rand thinks that if we can keep them healthy there might be a market for good horses when things pick back up. You could see the businessman coming out of hiding for a little while when he brought that up.

Rand also fixed most of what the raiders broke. It wasn't much in the scheme of things and that makes us more blessed than most, including Uncle George. When I mentioned that to Rand I got a hug and a kiss. When I asked him what the hug and kiss was for he said it was for not falling apart because things are so rough. That's when I heard that Julia is having a hard time adjusting to her new life. She is adjusting but just about anything makes her sit down and cry. He found that out from Ron's aunt that is living with the Winston's. I feel bad for her but at the same time we have to sleep in the bed we make for ourselves.

I'm glad that Rand was able to fix the crack in the dehydrator with some sort of glue stuff that was in Daddy's junk room. I've just gotten to the point where I can't do anything but dry all the apples that are coming in. Why on earth Momma planted so many doggone apple trees is beyond me unless she meant to sell them. I'm giving buckets of the things away when I can and I still have the dehydrator full 24/7. Tomorrow I'm going to cook apple butter for the last time and from there on out, what I don't dry I'll make into juice or cider. Now that is a pain in the tush without a press but you do what you can with what you have. I've just been cooking the apples down and then putting them through a strainer. It leaves the juice cloudy but I don't know what else to do.

Rand found a pecan tree when he was out getting posts the first time and he's been checking on it. The squirrels are taking some but he figures that a week, week and a half, we should be able to gather all the pecans that we can handle … assuming all the squirrels in the tri-county area don't find the tree first.

I think the tomatoes will start coming in the end of this week. I find a horn worm or two ever couple of days but I just pick them off and throw them to the chickens. Rand said that we should let the chickens in there and see what they do. I'm going to watch them and the first time they peck any of my veggies is the last time I'm letting them anywhere near the garden.

We need to enlarge their chicken run somehow. We've seen barn owls flying around lately and I don't know if they'll take the chicks or not but no sense in taking chances. And Rand says that first really cold night we get he wants to go after another deer even if he has to field dress it by himself.

Gosh there sure is a lot of work to being a farmer and we aren't really a very big operation. Rand said some farms run just about around the clock if they do animals and crops in any number. Gosh.

 **October 9** **th** – Manure Tea is absolutely disgusting! A couple of days ago Rand filled a five gallon bucket about a third of the way full with manure. Then he poured the bucket nearly full of water. Gag!

This morning Rand said it was ready. We put one of those burlap bags over another five gallon bucket and then strained out the solids from the now nearly black water. Ew! Ew! Ew! The smell of this stuff was enough to gag a maggot. I had to take a cup of the manure water and pour it into a gallon of water to dilute it. This is what I used to water my plants today.

The solids Rand threw on the compost pile with some saw dust to keep flies out of it. I'm sorry, this is just gross. I'm not weak stomached … really I'm not but I'd rather fork manure straight into the garden like compost that play with it like I'm making mud pies.

October 10th – Rand went to Uncle George's today. He was very stressed out when he came home but was trying not to show it. It was after dinner before he would talk about it. Mrs. Winston escaped from where they've been keeping her – she's been acting very erratic lately on top of everything else – and verbally attacked him in public about being the father of Julia's baby even though everyone knows that he isn't. Ron Harbinger was there too and it was painful for both men. Ron kept trying to explain to "Mother Winston" that Julia's baby was his but she wouldn't even acknowledge that Ron was standing there and talking.

Pour Rand … pour Ron and Mr. Winston and JR and all of them. We had a few foster boys that came through the house that were suffering from some kind of mental illness on top of their other problems. It was very challenging to deal with them when they weren't reality grounded. Rand said that Mr. Winston is pretty broken up about it. Between Julia and now his wife shattering his ideals of them … Rand said he tried to talk to Mr. Winston but nothing would come out and all he could do was put his arm around the man. He said he thought Mr. Winston was going to shrug him off at first and then the man just broke down sobbing. Ron's aunt seemed to know what to do and took Mr. Winston by the arm and got him back in the house.

"Kiri, it was all I could do to stand there when that woman was screeching at me. I thought it was Mr. Winston that was the problem all those times but what if it was his wife manipulating things. I just … "

Rand hung his head and I hugged him and asked him if he wanted to go talk to Julia and ask her. "What for? It's done and over with. If I ever do, I don't want you to ever think that I have regrets. The only regret I have is that I can't give you all the stuff … dances, restaurants, movies … all the stuff that I did with Julia. I would be proud to take you to places like that Kiri. No matter how this all started I'm not sorry that we are together and I don't … I really don't … want you to ever think that at any point that I would have rather ended up with Julia. I just wish I knew why things had to happen the way they did."

I can understand wanting to know why. I've wondered more than a few times why my family had to die, why I had to be scared up like this, why things have had to happen the way they have, why I was the one that wound up killing those people. The list of questions to wonder why about seems like it is so long I'll never find the end of it. One time Mr. Barnes … may he have found the peace he was hoping for … told me that it is ok to wonder why about something but we can't let the questions we have take up more time than actually living does.

 **October 11** **th** – So much for Brendon and Alicia coming over. We woke up to a rain … and a cold one at that. Rand had to go out in it and take care of the animals and even with rain gear on he was soaked and shivering by the time he got back to the house. The weather hasn't turned cold yet but the rain sure was.

Rand was like a caged lion all morning and through lunch. He was all primed to have Brendon help him get some more fence posts up. "We could have finished that one section off and then I would have had the whole pond area finished and ready for the wire! This day is going to waste! I'll never get anything finished at this rate!"

After lunch I decided that we might as well put the "wasted day" to good use. I wish I had a camera. Rand's face was pretty funny when I came out on the lanai where he was sulking wearing that scrap that Missy had given me. "I sure hope your mullygrubs don't mean I've got to stand out here in the cold in this thing for long." I don't think I've seen him move quite that fast very often.

We were going to light a fire in the fireplace but it really wasn't cold enough to be worth it, it was just damp. But I did use Momma's old warming pan on our sheets before Rand went to sleep for the night. Most days he'll go to bed and then I stay up another hour writing in my journal and unwinding. I find that that extra bit of quiet helps me keep my head on straight..

 **October 12** **th** – Weather fooled us, only the rain was cold yesterday. Today's weather was near normal for this time of year. It was in the upper 80s during the day.

Brendon and Alicia showed up today full of "whim, wigger, and witality" … or at least that is what my Daddy would have called it. They also brought some canned beef.

"One of the Brahma mixes stepped in a hole and broke its leg. How would like to wake up to that mess? We were butchering and processing late into the night. LauraBeth and Missy couldn't be in the kitchen more than a few minutes before they would have to run outside and puke in the azaleas. Not Alicia. Nope my bride has a stomach of steel. Our kid is going to be something else, I just know it!"

Alicia looked at me and grinned her small grin and then just rolled her eyes. Apparently Brendon is going a little over the top with the "our kid" thing. It's kind of cute. "Ignore him. I do." And we all laughed, even Brendon.

After Brendon and Rand set off towards the pond I asked Alicia, "Are Missy and Laurabeth really that bad?"

"Yeah, they are." But she smiled. "It just hits different women differently. I had a hard time for a while but now I feel wonderful. Like I could conquer the world, and the moon too. Missy is have a really bad time. I don't think she has ever been sick much in her life and this is making her miserable. She lets it get to her too much and now she's starting to get a little scared."

"Of what? I mean … well … I don't have much room to talk … " I said after my brain caught up with my mouth.

"Um, I know this is kind of personal but … are you and Rand … I mean … do you … you know … Look, I know it isn't any of my business but when I was younger, before we moved to Live Oak, Momma was a licensed midwife and I still have all her books and stuff. The last couple of years she'd given it up … Daddy had kind of beat her down … but she used to teach me what she knew. I just thought if you had any questions or were having problems or anything … "

Well, I figured if there was anyone that I could ask it would be Alicia. "Um yeah, Rand and I … well, everything is normal. We've been trying to be careful. Sometimes it seems like everyone else that was married about the same time as us … I mean I'm not sorry that it hasn't happened but at the same time I'm wondering if there isn't something wrong with me."

"Why would you think that there is something wrong with you?"

"The accident. I've got … well, you've seen the scars. They never said I couldn't , you know, make babies but they never said I could either."

"Kiri, I think you are worrying before you need to. If you and Rand are trying to wait then that's not a bad thing. Have you talked to Rand about this?"

"No! All we've talked about is waiting. If it happens I guess that is OK but … but trying … on purpose? I don't know that I'm ready for that. We just got married! I just turned seventeen! And things … they're so crazy. What kind of mom would I be anyway?"

"I wouldn't worry about what kind of mom you're going to be right now. Trust me, if I'd had my mind someplace other than where it was at … Brendon and I wouldn't be in the position we're in. But we did, and we are … and … I might regret some of it, but I don't regret that. Thank God for grace and mercy."

"Uh … I had cousins that were named Grace and Mercy … their mom used to say God sent her Grace and Mercy to teach her patience."

Alicia laughed and we kind of got off to different subjects. At least I know I have someone to talk to. I never really had close girlfriends that I could talk about this kind of stuff with. Maybe I should talk to Rand, but not right now. Every time I go passed that baby bed I start itching.

Mostly what we talked about today was tomatoes. The Floridade tomatoes are coming in almost all of a sudden. We had enough to can sauce and juice today. The sauce we canned by half pints and pints and the juice we canned in quarts. Alicia said their tomatoes started coming in over the weekend but they got theirs in the ground a few days earlier than we did. Tomorrow I'm going to make up a big pot of spaghetti sauce and can it in quarts also. I planted two whole rows of tomatoes so I hope to have enough to make a bunch of stuff with … tomato soup, green tomato pickles, tomato paste, tomato conserve, tomato butter, tomato relish, tomato jam, BBQ sauce, taco sauce, salsa, etc. My Momma used to go out to Ruskin and go to the U-pick farms down there and get tomatoes by the five gallon buckets. A fresh tomato is nothing like those cardboard things you got in the grocery store. At the diner you could always tell when we had to get our tomatoes off-season rather than straight from the field.

The other things started coming in today … cayennes, banana peppers, more bush beans, more cucumbers, and the arugula. I didn't realize how hungry I was for a fresh green salad until I cut that arugula. I felt like a nanny goat just mowing down anything that was green. Rand and Brendon laughed at Alicia and I but you could tell they enjoyed the arugula, tomato, and cucumber salad that we tossed together to go with the bean patties we fixed for lunch.

After they left I made the mistake of saying that I wished they lived closer. Rand got thoughtful and asked, "Does it bother you? That all you have is me out here?"

"Don't be silly. Of course not. But it is fun to have them over and to share work with them. I don't know but have you and Brendon always gotten along like this?"

"Lord no. He and I used to irritate each other and just about drove Uncle George up a wall. Whatever you think to the contrary I'm no angel."

He was so serious when he said it that I couldn't help it, I started laughing so hard I fell out of my chair. That started a tickle war and we almost forgot to take care of the chores that needed doing. I know there are bad things out there but being able to share this life with Rand … it makes things a lot better than they would have been otherwise.

Ram stopped by in person this afternoon. He had Sherri with him and she looked even worse than she had last time. Ram didn't look very good either. I made them both sit and told them they were off duty and he was too close to being a big brother for them to squeak about "locals this and locals that." I fixed them a fresh salad and then cut up some apples and made some cinnamon honey they could dip them in.

While they ate that, with Brendon and Alicia listening in, Ram explained what they've been going through. "There just aren't enough of us to do the job they want us to do. We're supposed to be patrolling the corridor between Tallahassee and Jacksonville with two other units but there is just no way. It's like asking one state trooper to cover four counties 24/7 with no back up and no time off. This mess that happened here the other day isn't the only battle that has been going on. Our supply line sucks. I haven't been paid in hard currency in months and even if I had what the heck is there to spend it on? I'm lucky the commander is fine with couples because I don't have any place for Sherri to go and I'm not leaving her. Her family turned their back on … well, never mind, that's water under the bridge now. It's just bad. At least we have orders that we're to dig in and expect to be here at least through the winter. We're setting up in Lee between US90 and I10. If you two want any seedling trees you better come tomorrow because we've taken over the land that some tree nursery was on. We've looked for the owners but we can't find 'em and none of the workers want to be responsible for the place since they haven't been paid in a while either."

Rand and Brendon plan to meet up and take Uncle George too and go see what trees he's talking about. Brendon wanted to know what all he'd heard about the explosions in all the big cities.

"It's a mess. Not much information is getting in or out of some of those areas. The cities that were still in pretty good shape because they had the dams to produce electricity are now hurting bad and for many winter has already started up in earnest. There's been some light snow flurries out in Denver. Worldwide? Right now the hotspots are where they used to be … lots of ethnically divided countries fighting it out to see who's going to win. A lot like when the Soviet Bloc started disintegrating only worse and more widespread. If we can get through the winter there might be so many casualties that folks will lay off and stop fighting for a while, give us time to regroup and assess all the damage. On top of that we've had some major natural disasters occur."

"What and where?"

"Tokyo got hit by an earthquake somewhere on the order of an 8.4 and word is that the city is still burning. The loss of life is being measured in the tens of thousands. There was a corresponding earthquake just off the coast of Japan that caused a tsunami and hundreds are dead from that. Russia is suffering from a famine. The nuclear contamination in Russia and China may be manmade but it has set off a lot of natural consequences … there is reports of some kind of plague in China along the Russo-China border although tinfoil hatters think it's a deliberate release by Russia as payback for the nukes. Who knows? Oil fields are on fire in the Middle East and the smoke is so bad they say that it is going to affect the world's weather patterns. I've seen some of the satellite pics … whole countries over there are blotted out and hidden by the smoke. And scientists say the fires could last for years which could cause crop failure in that part of the world which itself would lead to famine. We've had our own problems with wildfires in the west and along the coast of California. There is some kind of rust or blight or something like that affecting rice crops in southeast Asia. We've got some kind of mold or fungus … ergot I think you call it … is widespread in the wheat crop this year here in the States. You want me to go on? It's a depressing list."

I didn't want him to go on but Rand and Brendon kept him talking. I saw Alicia put hand protectively over her stomach and then watched Sherri do the same thing. Sometimes I wonder if I am the only person in the world that isn't pregnant.

The conversation turned back around when Alicia asked about the children of the raiders. "The orphans were taken into custody by federal social services. I wish them the best of luck. Some of the orphanages are OK but I've heard other ones aren't any better than workhouses. No better alternative to St. George was found so singles and families alike were transported there. The Colonel wasn't happy about it but the General gave him no choice. We just don't have the resources to make exceptions to the rules. Round hole, round peg, square hole, square peg … you start messing with that and it makes the guys in the accounting office really cranky."

They left a few minutes after Brendon and Alicia did. "Show me around? Ram has some business with Rand that he hasn't even talked to me about."

So I showed her the garden and we talked. She's nice but she never seems all there until she's with Ram. I guess it might be stress or some kind of security thing but it's a little hard to get used to. She fades off in the middle of sentences and then startles and looks for Ram real quick and then she is OK again. Whatever happened to her must have been rough.

They left shortly after that and I suppose Rand will tell me what they talked about if it is important. I hate being kept in the dark though. But curiosity killed the cat and I hope I'm smarter than Fraidy is.


	52. Chapter 51

Chapter 51

 **October 14** **th** – Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. Red tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes. But I'm not going to complain; yesterday Rand caught me sitting down in the middle of the garden eating a tomato just like an apple. I thought he was going to laugh at me but instead smiled and sat down in the dirt with me and took a bite out of the tomato I was eating.

I know that sounds foolish but it was just … just perfect. The garden is so pretty; all frilly green with flowers and fruits. It was warm but not hot and there was just enough of a breeze to keep the bugs from taking over the world. God helped us to take advantage of what He gave us. I don't think I would have appreciated this if things weren't like they are. I know there is a lesson in there but I'm just too tired to write it out so that it makes any kind of sense at all.

Yesterday Brendon, Uncle George, and Rand met Ram up at the tree nursery in Lee. They came back with Uncle George's wagon full of container plants and bare root tree seedlings. The trees they brought home included a couple of serviceberries, some red chokeberry, pawpaws, hickories, chinquapins, redbuds, dogwoods, mayhaws, yellow hawthorns, persimmons, cedar trees, poplar trees, magnolias, crabapples, mulberries, Chickasaw plums, azaleas, rhododendron, elderberries, sassafras, snowballs, blueberries, pindo palms and a bunch of pine trees. They were so excited and I could have just cried. I remember all the work of planting all the trees with Momma and Daddy by hand. We planted (and replanted when a seedling wouldn't make it from one year to the next) thousands of bareroot seedlings by sticking a trenching shovel in the ground, opening up a slit hole, dropping the bareroot in the hole and then stepping to close the hole. Brother or I took turns coming in behind Momma and Daddy with a watering can if the day was dry so that the little roots wouldn't dry out before any air pockets could seal so the tree wouldn't die.

So while Rand went off to dig more post holes I collected the dirt he would pull up and use it to fill containers to save the bareroot trees in until it was planting time; that would be January and February for most everything though I remember planting pines as late as March one year. Uncle George took most everything with him. With no orchard this was a chance for him to have some edible fruit at his place in a couple of years. He also needs to plant a woodlot as all he has is pasture.

I was so tired yesterday and my hands so sore from carrying bucket upon bucket of dirt that I just couldn't pick up a pen to write last night. And, I hate to say it, but this may be one of my last journal entries if I can't figure out some way to fix things. I didn't realize how many pens that I have been going through. I went digging around for a new one and that was when I discovered the problem. We've got a couple dozen pens and a gross of pencils but that's it. Who would have thought writing utensils would be our first major loss? There aren't any more to be had. Rand had a lot to say about "built in obsolescence" and things that run out before they are supposed to. He wasn't blaming me, he knows how writing things down helps my feelings, but he was upset as I was about potentially going back to prehistory style oral history and nothing else.

Tomorrow we are going to the Harbinger place to help with the barn. I'll admit to being a little anxious about it but it was my idea. Saying it is the Christian thing to do sounds like a copout but that's true but there is a secret part of me that wants to prove to everyone that might be thinking it that Rand and I don't have any regrets and that we are just fine … better than fine. And maybe I want to prove that to Julia specifically. I know it is petty; maybe I'm a little insecure even though Rand never has given me a reason to be.

 **October 16** **th** – Wow, yesterday was … well, it sure was something else. Mostly good but some not so good though I won't mention it to Rand who seems more at ease than he has been in a while, at least about all that stuff that happened with Julia. I guess he must have found some closure or something.

Rand and I talked about it we decided to only take some commercially canned veggies. It would have been easy for me to take something fresh out of the garden but to be honest we are still hesitant to let people know exactly what we have. The raiders are only one of the problems we could have as the weeks continue to creep by. Hungry people … hungry parents … are desperate people and I'm worried about that whole friends turning to enemies thing that could happen.

I did take two bushels of apples but kept them hidden under a blanket and some hay until we got the feel for how many people were going to show up. If only a few families showed up we'd have enough for everyone. If too many people showed up I'd either keep them out of sight or say they were for the children and/or pregnant women.

We started out just as soon as the first streaks of light brushed the sky. It was seventy degrees so I threw on a flannel shirt on top of my work clothes. Both Rand and I were armed plus I had my screwdriver and my wire cutters. You just never know what that kind of stuff could come in handy. I also had a pencil and a pack of index cards to write recipes and tips down on so that I could file them and continue Momma's collection. The index cards are going to go the way of the writing utensils soon too only it is possible I may have figured out a solution to both.

The Harbingers live off of River Road back in there. Ron's grandfather bought the land back in the 50s and slowly built up a nice farm back in there that paid for itself while he pursued a living running a small hardware store in town. Ron's father was always the primary farm manager but when his father died without a will the Harbinger brothers started feuding between the three of them all of them claiming that their dad said he meant to leave the farm to them alone. It wasn't until the other two brothers died that Jared Harbinger was able to take control of the farm free and clear by that time though the once prosperous family had eaten up a lot of the inheritance in legal fees and changing times. Jared inherited a mess but amazingly enough had turned his fortunes around only to run into the end of the world. Jared's preoccupation with the family's financial and social status left little time to take care of his family's spiritual status. For whatever reason God gave Ron Harbinger the second chance he didn't give his brother Fred.

We weren't the first people to show up but we weren't the last either. In fact there had to have been at least two dozen families there. Many of them came from the River Road area but there were people from all over; even Mr. Henderson, Tia Cia, Cassie, and Mitch Peters were there. Cassie was very subdued compared to any other time I've seen her. She stayed that way the entire time and only spoke to me to appear polite. That's fine, I know I'm not the one that got her in trouble; she did it to herself.

Julia was gray-faced. I found out later that her father had hoped seeing her would help but her mother said some very nasty things where others could hear. I never saw Mrs. Winston but I heard her a few times cackling like a mad woman. If she hasn't had a breakdown of some type she's the best actress in history.

I did like Rand asked and tried not to strain my back. It's close to being healed but it still pinches pretty good every once in a while. I don't know how it happened but I wound up helping by picking up fallen nails and putting them in a bucket to be straightened out so that they can be reused. Ron apparently had a hole in the pocket he'd been dropping nails into and every step he would take one or two would fall out. I keep bending over to pick them up but for every one I would pick up he would drop two more.

"Ron. Yo Ron. Ron! Hey … RON!"

"Huh?" I finally caught up to him, stuck my finger in the pocket of the carpenter's apron he was wearing and showed him the hole and the bucket I was filling up with his dropped nails. It just caught us both as funny and he snorted with laughter. No big deal. He shifted the apron so that he could drop the nails in the other pocket and we both went about our business.

Right before lunch I stopped working and then went to the outhouse. When I came out Julia was standing there.

"You can't have him."

"Uh …. ?"

"Don't play innocent with me. You can't have him."

"Please tell me you aren't talking about Rand."

"Rand? No! Ron … and you know it. You can't have him."

"Julia, don't get all … whatever. I barely know Ron."

"You didn't know Rand either."

"Hey! Look, whatever problems you and Rand had weren't my fault."

"Why do you keep talking about Rand?!"

"You're the one that brought him up!"

"No I didn't. I told you you couldn't have Ron!"

"Why would I want Ron when I have Rand?!"

"Well … well … you can't have him. Ron is mine."

Yeah, I know it sounds stupid. I'm putting it down to hormones … hers and mine. And to add insult to injury Ron came around the porch and caught us acting like a couple of second graders. What got me is Julia got this really scared look on her face and then burst into tears and falls into Ron's arms. He just stands there holding her and I could barely understand what she was saying she was talking so fast and then I caught "you don't understand" and then she tears off to go inside the house.

"Um, isn't this the part of the story where you run after her to make it all better?"

"I've tried that, it doesn't work. She either trusts me or she don't. I'm done fightin' about it. I married her. Why she can't let that be enough I don't know. She wants stuff I can't give her. She's going to have to learn to be content with that. If she could maybe we could go forward instead of constantly playing this same old song over and over again."

Despite what he said he sighed real deep and stepped up on the porch and went inside. I'm glad Rand and I worked our problems out, I can't imagine living the life Julia and Ron are living.

Lunch and clean up was the end of the work day, with so many people there the job went super quick. I remembered the apples right as people started packing up. There was enough for the adults to all have one and the few kids there were there to have two.

About halfway home Rand and I both started getting anxious to get home. You just never know these days but everything was fine and Woofer and Fraidy were sharing a rabbit they got from someplace. Farm animals one, garden destroyers zip.

The wind picked up yesterday around four o'clock and blew all night bringing with it a much cooler day today and the cool just keeps coming. I'm sitting here with an afgan over my legs relaxing after a long day on my feet. Two more apple trees started coming in and I canned 36 quarts of juice and sliced a new batch to go into the dryer. The wood pile is going down faster than I expected it to. As soon as it cools down I'm going to start canning on the princess to see if the stove is more economical about the wood. I hate that Rand has to chop wood and dig fence post holes because it is such hard work.

Tomorrow Brendon and the boys are coming over but I don't know if any of the others will be with them. They and Rand will be planting the rye, triticale, and soft red wheat. If there is time Rand also wants to break ground over in the eighty next to us and plant some rye and triticale there as well. The wheat he is going to hold back in case we need it for bread. I hope it doesn't get that ergot stuff Ram talked about; Rand tells me that is some bad stuff and was a real problem during the Middle Ages before people realized what was going on.

Tomorrow I'm going to can some mustard greens and collard greens. I'll deal with more of the apples too but I'm thinking of sending a couple of three bushels home with Brendon. I'll take care of what else needs to be picked from the garden too. There has got to be a better way than having everything come ready at once like this … Rand said I can do something called "succession planting" where I plant something, wait a few days or a week and then plant more of it, so on and so forth until the planting season is over with. I might have to try that next season.

Tomorrow I'm going to pretend the guys are rabbits and feed them a huge salad with all sorts of stuff thrown in there. That ought to help my workload. I offered to help with the planting but Rand got that stubborn look on his face and said that's what Brendon was coming over for.

The other thing I'm going to try tomorrow is to make my own ink. Rand brought back a few of the pecans that are starting to fall. If we didn't have to plant tomorrow we'd go over and get them before the squirrels do. I asked Mr. Coffey and Momma O what they used for ink and they looked at me and laughed and asked if I thought they'd lived back in the dark ages. A woman named Matilda Ledbetter said, "Well, I'm older than both of you and I do happen to recall my Daddy not having the money to buy us ink for the school inkwell one year. He made ink out of pecan shells."

She told me how it was done so I'm going to try it. Someone else told me you can make an ink out of fermented pokeberries in fact that is what a lot of soldiers used during the American Civil War and it is also what the US Constitution is supposed to have been written with.

 **October 17** **th** – If it isn't one thing it is another. Ram came by real quick to say goodbye. His whole … whatever you call it … base I guess … has been redeployed further down the west coast of the state. The only thing he was free to say was thank you to Rand – apparently Rand had agreed to make room for Sherri if anything happened to Ram – and to warn Rand against trusting anyone new that might bring in new units into the area.

"You did not hear this from me. I'm not even sure if Henderson would be able to pick this up from radio chatter yet. Cuba and Venezuela have some friends that are in a very bad way and might be interested in the natural resources to be collected from our country … and they're getting mighty cold and hungry right now and may set something in motion we'll all have to deal with. Also, new troops brought into this area – if any – might have a completely different way of doing things and completely different directives from what we had. I haven't heard but … just … just be watchful and get yourself situated and keep what you've got to yourself for as long as you can manage it." He sighed like an old man and then continued, "Most of us hoped we'd have the winter to regroup and maybe it would knock the stuffing out of the biggest players that might think of standing against us. I'm not sure that we'll get that break after all now. Every day the play book is getting rewritten. And … and you two be careful. I don't know for sure … I won't even guess and won't admit to this if you say something to someone else … the players in this Administration seem to keep changing. Everybody wants to be in control but no one wants to take responsibility. I honestly don't know what is going on. We're getting all sorts of mixed signals from command. Something's up … but only God knows what it is."

He left and I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever see him again. As he left he leaned over and whispered something that put the weirdest look on Rand's face. Rand wouldn't say anything about it. We walked Ram to the main gate and then watched as he headed towards US90 to get back to Lee before dark to help Sherri finish packing the few things they had managed to accumulate.

We walked back to the house and finished our chores. I put a dinner of greens, beans, and corn pone on the table but Rand ate with a pensive look on his face. After we put the animals up and it got dark Rand told me to go in the house and not worry if it was a little bit before he came back in. Oh no, that didn't raise my suspicions at all. Of course not.

An hour passed and right before my nerves snapped he stepped inside with a big box in his arms. He took it straight up to the dormer room and I followed, picking up a piece of paper that had fallen out.

 _R,_

 _I don't know how much good this will do you. I've never worked in comm but this was part of a set up that was used for local and some long distance back and forth. I think all the parts are here, how you power it up will be your concern. I wouldn't even tell Henderson you have this, will be a good way to fact check what he lets out._

 _Proud to have met you and called you friend … and take care of the brat, she can be a handful._

 _RD_

It's a radio of some kind. Rand says it is an amateur radio set up. He's never operated one. My dad has some notes on that type of thing but the main problem is going to be powering it and having some kind of antenna. That's something I know nothing about and apparently Rand doesn't know much more. Not being able to ask people is a problem. We'll have to figure it all out on our own. I could see the wheels turning in Rand's head the whole time until he finally went to bed.

It only got up to sixty-two degrees today and I'm freezing. Rand and I threw an extra blanket on the bed but with the way things are in the dormer room we realize once it gets too much cooler at night we're going to need to move downstairs so that we can have the heat from the fireplace. It's too cold to sit here any longer even if I do have a million things to write about. I'm off to bed.


	53. Chapter 52

Chapter 52

 **October 17** **th** – Is this not the coolest thing?! I made my own ink! So my handwriting is a little on the rough side since I'm learning to write with what amounts to a quill but if I take my time it isn't too awful. Rand says that he has some metal nibs in his stuff someplace that belonged to his mother. She did calligraphy for a wedding boutique for a while to bring in some spending money before she got sick. He says if I can wait he'll find them for me. If he can't find them then I'll keep using the owl feather quills. But that also means writing at a desk instead of curled up on the window seat. You have to have the right angle for a quill or dipped pen to work which is kind of frustrating. No wonder all those historical figures carried around those portable desk thingies that wind up in museums.

Cutting the quill was an adventure. I followed the directions in one of my old children's books about pioneer crafts. It was a lot harder than it looked. Rand wound up having to make a few more cuts using his pen knife. They call them pocket knives these days but pen knives really were used for sharpening quills once upon a time.

The "ink" was actually fun to make; I can see it getting tedious if this goes on for years and years but the alternative isn't too cool either. The following recipe doesn't make much ink but if I make too much at a time it will dry out. First you take all of the shell (none of the meat) from about ten pecans and crush the dickens out of them. You don't need to turn them into powder but you do want them into small pieces. Put the crushed shells in a pan with one cup of water and bring it to a boil and then turn it to simmer and simmer it for one hour. I almost let all the water boil away so when the recipe says simmer they mean a simmer and nothing any higher than that. After an hour most of the water will be gone leaving a very dark liquid. Then you let the remaining liquid sit until it cools.

Next you pour the boiled mess through a small strainer into a non-porous container … like a glass jar. Toss the shells into the compost pile and watch out that you don't drip any of the liquid on you or you will get a stain … so much for my one work shirt that didn't have any stains on it. To this very dark liquid add one-half teaspoon of vinegar to "set" the ink and one-half teaspoon of salt to keep it from growing mold. Moldy ink equals major ew! The ink is a pretty brown as you can see.

You are supposed to be able to make ink from berries like this too but I haven't tried that yet. I just hope they hold up over time. Momma O said that they also made ink from laundry bluing when she was a little girl … I have absolutely no idea what that is though I've seen it a couple of times in books; I thought it was supposed to make white stuff whiter so I don't see how it could make a Prussian blue ink. Weird.

Rand and Brendon were at it most of the day. Planting in the prepared fields in the easement was hard but when they had to break ground in the eighty that is next to us, that was really hard. The wind didn't help. Rand is a little worried that all the work is for nothing but he also said, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

That's about how I'm feeling when it comes to canning all the greens we have. I fed a bunch to Rand and Brendon for lunch with corn pone but we can't eat them as fast as they are coming in, not even if we ate greens morning, noon, and night. Next year I'm definitely going to plant the greens differently. Today I canned the greens in pints. I might regret that later but all I can do is try it this way once. I've found it takes about 18 pounds of to make nine pints for the canner.

First you wash the greens, a small amount at a time, to get all the sand, grit, and yuck off of them. Make sure your greens are fresh and don't have any ucky places on them. Then after you are sure your greens are all clean, cut out the tough stem part that runs up the middle of the leaves. Blanch a pound of greens at a time in steam for three to five minutes. You've gotta do this or you might as well not waste your time. Momma had a note out beside the directions and she said, "If you don't blanche the greens you'll wind up with something as appetizing as cow cud." The picture that made in my head was really gross.

You put a half teaspoon of salt in each jar then carefully put in the blanched greens loosely packed; about two pounds per pint jar. Next you take fresh boiling water (I used a tea kettle since the coffee pot was full of coffee) and pour it into the jar over the greens leaving one inch of headspace. From there it is the same as pressure canning for any veggie – eleven pounds of pressure for seventy minutes (pints) or for ninety minutes (quarts). I made a canner full for each type of green – collards, mustard, and kale. I was going to give some to Brendon but he says they have plenty of collards and mustard greens. I should have known with Alicia and Laurabeth running the garden.

When we were sitting down to lunch I all of a sudden got a horrible case of the giggles. Rand and Brendon were chewing on their greens and not saying much. This picture of all three of us with horns and mooing just sort of took over my brain. I had to get up and leave the table and couldn't even tell Rand what I was laughing about. Brendon shook his head and said, "Don't even try man. Alicia and Laurabeth will do that at the house. I never understand what the joke is when they try and explain it and that just makes them start laughing all over again."

I like mustard greens myself though I'll admit that eating greens every meal is getting just a little much. You have to eat what is coming out of the garden though. I took a jar of ham chunks that Alicia sent me and dumped them in a pot and fried them up a little bit then I added two bunches of greens that I'd washed and cut the steams out of and cooked them down in the ham and grease until they were wilted. Then I covered the whole mess with fresh water and some salt and pepper and let them cook until they were tender. It gave me time to make the corn pones and finish getting the white beans out of the Dutch oven. It may not be the fanciest meal but it is filling and I think healthy too.

I never was a French fry, potato chip, and candy kind of person. Working at the diner spoiled me … not to mention the zit issues. I bet though some of my friends had a hard time adjusting to a life without a fast food restaurant on every corner, sodas in the frig at home, and an entire aisle of candy bars to choose from at the minimart. Well, assuming any of them are left alive that is.

For dinner we had the leftover beans and greens but instead of cornpone I made tomato fritters. You take two sliced tomatoes, one cup of cornmeal and a half teaspoon of salt. Season the cornmeal with the salt and then use it to bread the tomato slices. Fry these up in butter until the crust is golden brown.

Rand is snoring again tonight so I know he is tired. He fooled around with that radio a bit but this isn't like just plugging something up and it working. First he is going to have to figure out if the solar panels will run the radio, if they won't then I guess it is a done deal. If they will then we need to figure out an antenna that isn't too obvious. He says he doesn't want to transmit so much as he wants to listen to what people are saying.

The thermometer says 45 degrees. Brrrr. I need to find me some warm jammies. I'm particular about my jammies and after the last set got ruined I've been sleeping in one of Rand's oversized t-shirts. That is not going to cut it if it gets any colder.

 **October 18** **th** – I've got sixty pounds of pecans in burlap bags down in the summer kitchen. Knowing that I've got about three months to get those things all cracked and canned makes me feel cross-eyed. Rand didn't just find one pecan tree, he found a small grove of them. We had to fight the squirrels for the nuts but we finally got our share. It took us the better part of the morning but we did it.

I also had to watch Rand climb around in the trees like a monkey, jumping up and down on some of the bigger limbs so that the nuts would fall to the ground. I made the mistake of standing underneath a tree he did that to … falling pecans hurt. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was cold and windy when we woke up and Rand laughed when he came back inside and stuck his cold hands up my shirt. He's lucky I didn't pour his coffee down the drain in retaliation. He likes the jacket that I made him for his birthday. It seems even bigger on him now than it did then but he says it gives him shoulder room. It never did get above sixty degrees today. Rand said it was the earliest cold spell like that he could remember.

We took the mules and the little wagon, a couple of long poles, and some tarps with us and then cut across two fenced eighties. We weren't all that far from the property where the chickens came from. When we got there we could see that one tree had already been completely stripped so we knew we didn't have long. We laid the tarps under the trees and then I knocked some pecans off the lower branches with the poles but all that did was tell the squirrels it was smorgasbord time. That's when Rand decided to make like a monkey. The nuts literally rained down after that.

He shimmied back down the tree and we scooped the nuts up off the tarps and tossed them in the back of the wagon. Rand got so irritated with the squirrels coming from all over that he got his rifle and got a dozen without a problem while I finished putting the last of the nuts in the wagon and covering them with a tarp. Fraidy has kept the squirrel population down around our place and now Woofer gets a share with her so they take out twice as many as she used to do alone. Other places you go you are beating those nasty little tree rats off with a stick. People are even having them chew into their soffits and get into their attics. Once the hole is there then bats and other varmints can make their way in and you have a real problem, especially considering there are no more professional exterminators around or poisons to be had.

When we got back Rand cleaned all of the squirrels – well, almost all of them – while I cleaned up all the debris from the pecans and then put the nuts in burlap bags. When we were finished he moved the burlap bags into the kitchen for me and I started the squirrels boiling. When they were tender I pulled all the meat off the bones and then after that it was just like making chicken and dumplings only I made squirrel dumplings.

But Woofer is in the doghouse. He snatched two of the squirrels from Rand's pile before he could get them all cleaned. What is worse I had just gone into the garden to check to see if I needed to pick anything that was ripe. Rand was chasing Woofer around the house and he shot straight at me for protection … and in the process broke the main stem of two of my brandywine tomato vines. It was just full of tomatoes too … they were still green but I just know they would have made. I could have cried … after I skinned me a dog for winter booties.

If both of us hadn't been so mad it probably would have been funny … could have been on one of those television shows that used to come on about funniest home videos or something. Woofer is fast and he thought it was a game. I was squealing at Rand to get him out of the garden and Rand hollering, "I'm trying!" and just missing as Woofer took off in another direction.

Woofer spent the rest of the afternoon on a rope tied to a tree in the yard. I could swear that Fraidy came by a few times to laugh at him. He's still nothing but a big puppy and he thought he was playing but we can't let this kind of thing happen again. You could see where Woofer was crying because he was so sad. Rand didn't have the heart to leave him tied up after dinner but it took a while for Woofer to get his normal goofy attitude back. He stayed close to Rand the rest of the night. In fact they're both snoring on the bed while I write this.

Now I have the green tomatoes sitting on the counters downstairs too. I know I've got some recipes for green tomatoes in Momma's files so guess what I'll be doing tomorrow?

 **October 19** **th** – Rand tested the pecans and he says they need to dry out a little before I start cracking them. Thank goodness! I've got enough on my plate. We put the nuts in smaller bags and they are hanging from the clothes line in the summer kitchen to dry a little more.

It got down to thirty five degrees last night and I was sure I was going to wake up to a ruined garden but no sign of it so far except for one limp bunch of Kale and that could have been because of Woofer. Rand thinks it is warming up since it made it to seventy degrees today. I'm glad; I'm not ready for it to get cold yet. Brrrr!

Rand dug holes and set fence posts until lunch. While he was doing that I did what I could to save the green tomatoes. First I started by making green tomato mincemeat. It used a lot of sugar (three pounds of white and one pound of brown to two gallons of green tomatoes) so I doubt I'll be making any more but what I made tasted pretty good; but it also took two pounds of raisins and a bunch of spices. Definitely going to have to cut back on the "expensive" recipes.

I also made five pints of green tomato pickles. That finished up all but a couple of tomatoes that I breaded and fried for fried green tomatoes to go with lunch.

Mr. Henderson and Mitch Peters showed up as I was clearing the table but there was enough coffee and the squash pie I made wasn't refused by either man. They came by to give a heads up that they'd be delivering the rest of the fence posts and barbed wire later in the afternoon. They also came to tell us that they were going to be increasing their patrols and if we didn't mind they might occasionally set up a "camp" on the opposite side of CR49 from our main gate for resupply and or for rendezvous between patrol groups.

What were we supposed to say? Rand said one benefit is that when they do set up there our gate would be less vulnerable but we'd possibly lose some of our privacy. In a community as small as Live Oak is becoming however there isn't that much privacy to be had once you step off your property anyway.

After Mr. Henderson and Mitch left Rand said, "Not what I was looking for but it will serve a purpose for now so long as Henderson and Mitch are in control."

"Are you sure? I don't know, it gives me the heebies that we might be being watched."

"Honey, we already are," he laughed.

"What?!"

"Sugar, we're being watched by just about everyone. There are a few that would be happy to see us fail so they can have a sense of what they consider justice in their world. More want us to succeed because it will mean that their kids can make it too. Most of everyone left is just … well … there isn't exactly much to take their mind off their own lives so they talk about others'. And it isn't just the women doing it. I've gotten more ribbing because you aren't barefoot and pregnant yet."

"Oh, now hold on … "

"Don't get bent out of shape. Mostly they are just kidding around."

"I don't care if they are. That's none of their doggone business!"

"I know. I know … come on, settle down. I thought you would think it was funny."

"Well I don't. It's bad enough that I can't make up my own mind if it is a good thing or not. I sure don't want other people talking about it.

"Well … you know, you could have said something to me. Is this why you haven't started unpacking the room where we stuck the baby bed? Does it bother you that much? Are you … do you think you might be?"

"Oh Rand," I said not wanting to hurt his feelings. "No, I'm not, and you know it isn't because … you know … and if saying it bothers me exactly is the right word. It is just one more thing that people are trying to rush us about. We had to rush into getting married … which I don't regret so smooth out the wrinkle between your eyebrows … then it turns out that we really didn't need to because the government types were rushing things on their end themselves and have now called that plan off. We haven't even been married three months yet; and I like having time for just the two of us. Kids change all of that and from what I've seen babies are lots of work! I saw what happened to the girls at school that got pregnant young. It was fun while they were pregnant, they got all this attention and it felt good, but when the baby arrived it turned into a completely different picture. And all this work we have to do to try and get stable? If I get pregnant I'll have to cut back on lifting and climbing and stuff like that and … "

"I don't want you lifting and climbing and …"

"Rand, you know what I mean. It was such a pain to get any work done when my back was cut. I had to wait for you to do everything. When Alicia was over here I did all the lifting because she is starting to show. And then, what about that night with the raiders?! If I had been pregnant I wouldn't have been able to … "

"You shouldn't have to start with …

"Rand! Stop it. You know exactly what I mean so stop turning it around on me. There are just so many things going on in the world and the idea of trying to have a baby and then raising that baby into someone healthy and good just … just … I don't know if it is the right thing to do."

"You don't want kids?"

"That's not what I'm saying. I do, I just don't know if I want them right now."

"Then what are you worrying about? We're counting days and being careful."

"Because … because … I don't know … part of me does want to … in a way … but I don't know if it is for the right reason or just because … oh I don't know."

"Oh Hon," and he hugged me. "Look, I think we're just going to have to take things as they come. There are days that I feel so old and tired I can barely string two words together. The idea of you being pregnant right now scares me spitless. If it happens I'll deal with and be happy about it too but if you want to know the truth, it's not hurting my feelings any that we are waiting."

Then I knew it was now or never. I hadn't even put everything together about how I'd been feeling until the last couple of days and I wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Rand, the way I'm feeling isn't just about having a baby." I could seem him get serious and just a little worried. "I'm scared. Something feels like it is brewing. I can't explain it. All I can say is that is my brain is starting to do the math and it doesn't like the sum."

We sat down in the porch swing and Rand put his arm around me while I continued. "Why would they redeploy Ram's unit like that just days after they told them to dig in for the winter? Why would he take such a big a risk to leave you a radio like that? Why is Mr. Henderson suddenly stepping up patrols? Something just … it just feels … "

I leaned into him and then continued, "Rand I'm not crazy. Something told me I needed to get out of Tampa and get up here. It was one the best things I've ever done with my life I think. Something told me that I could trust you … right from the start you were different and I've never regretted it for a second. And right now … right now something is telling me to hurry, to build our den with thick walls and to lay in everything we can because something is coming. I don't know what it is but that is the way I feel."

Rand just held me. I thought maybe he thought that I was crazy after all but then he said, "My dad was a man that worked hard his whole life Kiri; fifty to seventy hours a week every week for years on end. He was raised hard and had to grow up fast. He could be cranky and cynical. His motto was believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see. He didn't always have politically correct things to say when it came to people but one of the few things he believed in that he couldn't see with his own eyes was women's intuition. It was a joke but was also a serious thing between my parents. Sometimes Mom would just get a feeling about something and that's all Dad needed to know. She wasn't even having any symptoms but she told my dad that she knew she was sick. He took her to three different doctors before they found one that would listen to them. Mom was dead less than a year later and dad soon after that. Aunt Rachel used to help Uncle George at the auctions, she had a sixth sense when it came to buyers and sellers or whether a breeding pair were going to work or not and it wasn't always the way everyone else thought. Nine times out of ten she was right. If your feelings are telling you that something is coming … we'll go with that. You still have that list of stuff you were making? Good. Make a copy of it and I'll give it to Missy and have her be on the lookout for it at the Trade-In Shack."

"Oh Rand, thank you for not thinking I'm losing my mind. I keep wondering if I'm losing it like poor Mrs. Winston. And what's The Trade-In Shack?"

"The last thing you are is anything like Mrs. Winston … and the last thing that woman is getting from me is pity and I don't want you wasting any on her either. She brought a lot of her problems down on herself and now she … aw, forget it. Just don't get drawn in. The Winstons are … they'll suck everything you have to give right out of you. As for the Trade-In Shack … that's what everyone is calling the house that Missy and Bill are using to organize all of that stuff that Ram's unit tried to give out to the community. Missy is a lot better at that sort of thing than she is at gardening and raising animals so she and Bill have worked it out with the others. Bill works on security and manual labor, Missy organizes and runs the Shack which brings in stuff for the families on their road and Uncle George keeps a place for them at his table. It works out."

"And Missy will help us get stuff on that list?"

"Yeah. We'll need to be ready to follow the rules like everyone else of bringing in trade for any items that we withdraw but we'll figure that out. We've got enough dried apples that we could probably have anything we want right now. But you just keep drying them … don't waste jars on them unless there is something you want to keep for us. Actually speaking of jars and lids, one of the things that Brendon told me was he and Alicia went back to get the last of the stuff from her old place and in the back end of her dad's old delivery van were boxes of what they thought was junk … turned out to be mason jars full of nuts, bolts, nails, paperclips, and stuff like that. Her dad was a hoarder. There were also a couple of cases of rings and lids … unused ones. Alicia has looked at the jars and most of them look sound. As soon as they get them cleaned out the family is going to split them in thirds … they'll get two-thirds and we'll get a third."

"But … "

"Don't worry about it Babe. It all works out in the end. They've been getting fruit from us. We are growing feed for the animals. We'll trade work come butchering weather. Kiri … come on girl … don't look a gift horse in the mouth. You didn't see any of them turning down the bushels of fruit you've been sending their way."

"I guess. You really don't think I'm being … hysterical or anything?"

"Do you feel hysterical? Do you feel like you are over reacting?"

"No. No I don't."

"Then that is what we'll go with. And if nothing happens then we'll still be better off than we would have been otherwise. It's a win-win situation for us."

I sure hope he is right.


	54. Chapter 53

Chapter 53

 **October 24** **th** –

 _"_ _Work, work, work, All day long,_

 _Crank it up, back it up, bring it on home,_

 _supper on the table and I eat me a bite_

 _then we snuggle on the porch by the pale moon light._

 _A little bit of me and you doin' all right._

 _A little bit of life."_

Every time that song would come on the radio when I was working at the diner we all knew to put our earplugs in because Ms. Belle was going to jack the volume up. Who would have thought my life would turn into a country song?!

The garden is spitting out stuff left and right, the chickens are laying eggs better and I have enough to cook us some real eggs every couple of days and our little flock has doubled in size and Rand has said to go ahead and start taking all the eggs and using them. We didn't have to wait to get a boar for our soon to be pig herd … one came to us. Rand had actually been after some deer that had been coming around. He had put up a temporary fence made of a set some wooden pallets that we had found here and there and then put corn down in the middle of it.

I'm up but still bleary-eyed and trying to take care of nature's call when Rand bangs into the house yelling, "Kiri!"

I'm half dressed and grabbing for my gun then the loon laughs and says, "I need you to help me! I need nails, hammer, and more boards!"

I'm so clueless but I'm running around house side with nothing but my jammies and my boots, dragging hammer, nails, and boards over to him and there is something banging around like the Tasmanian Devil and Rand is laughing and holding a piece of goat pen up against the opening that he'd left for the deer to go in. And he's laughing and going "ow!" every time whatever it is bangs against the metal sheet and then starts laughing some more!

Well, we managed to get Taz penned in so he couldn't break out and we now have a boy pig. Yeah, I know "Taz" is a stupid name for a pig but this guy is something else. Rand said he was domesticated not that long ago because he has had his tusks cut down. Rand won't let me feed him yet. He'll still bang around in the pen. Rand is building a bigger yard for him but he has so much to do every day that projects seem to take twice as long to complete.

The weather has warmed up too. It is back to being a high of eighty degrees during the day and doesn't want to go below sixty degrees at night. This is actually really nice weather and we've been taking advantage of it while we still have it.

I can't even name off the top of my head everything that I've canned since the last time I wasn't too tired to write in my journal. I can tell you what I've been doing today. Corn. It's short corn so I can actually reach everything. It just sort of caught me off guard because I kept expecting it to get taller but then it tasseled and the corn silks turned brown and I knew it was time to start pulling corn. But, just like with the greens, I planted everything on the same day so everything is ripening just about on the same day.

I'm really lucky that Charlene and Missy came today with Brendon. Brendon and Rand were doing something to the hay and also cutting some more trees. We made the plan at the church service on Sunday. Missy had a pile of stuff she wanted to repair for the Trade-In Shack and Laurabeth and Alicia had their pedal sewing machine going every time she wanted to use it trying to sew things for the babies that are coming, making diapers, sewing up the boys' clothes where they are wearing them out or out growing them. Bill agreed to watch the Shack so she could come over here. I didn't mind, I hadn't seen her in a while. Charlene came over to get away since she hasn't gotten to very often.

All three of them arrived early in the morning; I had barely finished clearing away Rand's breakfast dishes. The other day Rand brought down my sewing machine from the bonus room. I'd wanted to move it downstairs anyway so that I could do more sewing this winter. It gets cold in those bonus rooms, I remember that much. Missy was all business and wanted to get to it. I guess she wanted to get finished and get back to Bill as soon as possible. Charlene helped me with the corn.

We canned whole kernel corn and creamed corn. We also made some calico corn; mostly it was the whole kernel stuff. And since Charlene and I were doing all of the work I decided to make us a treat. Missy said not to get any food near her … she didn't travel so well to get over here … so Charlene and I got it all. This is something my grandmother used to do for those cousins that helped out during corn canning season. Take two cups of sugar and one cup of water and bring it to a simmer, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar. Continue to simmer about five minutes and then dump in two cups of fresh corn kernels and bring everything back to a simmer. Simmer for another eight to ten minutes, until the white end is translucent. Drain the remaining syrup off … use it to sweeten a veggie dish or cornbread or something like that rather than waste it, you could even add it to the pancake syrup bottle. Spread the sugared corn out on a plate until they are cool … about thirty minutes … and then you can munch. You don't wind up with much, about a cup, but that is plenty for what amounts to candy.

Tomorrow however I'm going to do something different and Rand has been giving me fits over it all evening; reminding me, checking my equipment, etc. I'm going to ride Lou over to the Trade-In Shack and try and see if we can get anything on our list. Rand has already been and gotten a couple pair of shoes for himself, work boots primarily, and I need the same as well and some other stuff too.

The thing that convinced him to let me go is that Rand finally broke down and had to ask Bill for some help. Bill has his own radio set up that is pretty fancy. He just has to be very careful about the fuel and generator use. Bill agreed to help build an antenna for Rand in exchange for Rand being on the lookout and helping Bill design and build a biofuel set up. The trick was that the antenna had to be a "stealth" antenna so that no one would know for sure what it was.

Bill helped build one that is along the order of looking like a bird feeder only that was too obvious considering anyone that is into amateur radio as probably seen similar stealth designs. We've mounted it on the back of the house … an area no one but ourselves ever goes … and instead of a bird feeder it is camouflaged as a wasp trap. If anyone does wind up asking us why it is so high up on the eaves then that will be the perfect excuse as there are a lot of wasp problems around here.

The powering issue wasn't as hard as we thought it was going to be. My dad was an amazing planner, he just hadn't hooked everything up yet. Uncle Charlie was always making disparaging remarks about the way my Dad did things. He would complain something was too small or too big or wasn't mounted right. Luckily the stipulation of the trust prevented him from changing the property in any way. One of the things Uncle Charlie seemed to despise the most was the solar panels on top of the house. He said they were overkill for the security lights, weren't mounted properly, could have been utilized better, were an eyesore, etc.

Rand tried to explain them to me but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to explain them correctly here. There are three sets of panels. There is one set of three panels on the barn roof. They don't hook up to anything and Rand hasn't found what Daddy intended on doing with them. I love my Daddy but the filing system he used is a little peculiar and his humor even more so which will sometimes impact where we find stuff in the files. The other panels are two sets of three panels mounted on top of the house. Each panel is what Rand calls a 15 watt panel. So on the roof of the house we have a total of 90 watts. We also have a bank of six gel-cell batteries. There is a thousand watt sine inverter, some type of charge control thingy, an amplifier thingy, and all sorts of cables and stuff in one of Daddy's work benches.

And no, I have no idea what any of that means. Rand and I have agreed to split our responsibilities so that we can get more done … we know the basics of what the other does but until things are more stable and I have more time I am completely happy to turn over all that electric stuff to him to figure out. I'll learn it, I'm just happy I don't have to learn it right now.

What I do know is that I watched Rand on the roof hooking up the second set of solar panels as they were apparently just there for looks until Daddy got around to doing something with them. I suspect all of those folks that Daddy had over for dinner when I was growing up had something to do with how easy he found some of his "junk" to bring up to the property every time we came. And then once we got everything hooked up he said he thinks we can run the radio at least 50 hours off of one charge battery before we would need to switch to one of the other batteries in the bank. It also wasn't fun watching him try to hand drill a hole through the hardy board siding so that we could run the cables from the antenna back to the radio.

The radio works, it makes noise, but we don't have a microphone for transmitting … it wasn't in the box that Ram left. Rand isn't concerned with transmitting right now anyway. What is more important is to be able to hear what is going on out in the world. Well that is easier said than done. You see there are reasons why you take classes and go to school and get training for the field of communications. It's not as easy as they make it seem in the movies. Rand is learning but even accidentally we are hearing things that aren't so great.

Not too many people actually give out their locations so you have to listen for a while to see if they drop clues; for example if they talk about snow in their area we know they likely are likely further north than Atlanta. Sometimes people will talk about specific landmarks like a large lake or a highway or a national monument and then you can kind of pinpoint their area if you are quick enough.

Bottom line is that there are a lot of scared, angry, and hungry people out there. The cold only makes them more scared, angry, and hungry. Along the Gulf of Mexico you get the impression that people are digging in if they aren't actually being forcibly removed from the coastal areas. There aren't any fisherman on the Gulf … or at least none that will admit to it. No fuel means no fishing fleet. But some people still mention seeing military looking vessels in the Gulf … I just hope they are ours.

One night Rand ran across a guy speaking Spanish. He was talking so fast I could barely keep up but man did he sound dee-ranged. It was death to America this and they'll get what they deserve that and support our brothers and comrades trying to free North America from the oppressive colonialism of the white Anglos, etc. Yikes. Annie grab your gun. It was hard to tell if he was just crazy by himself or crazy with an audience.

There aren't that many people out there transmitting. Power sources are iffy and/or hidden and/or being saved and/or just about anything you can come up with. But there is enough. And what they are saying is only reinforcing how I've been feeling. And I've infected Rand I think.

He's been going over early, early in the morning and bringing back wagon loads of cement blocks from that place that burned where Laurabeth had her wedding. He's using some of the blocks to make more secure paddocks for the goats and pigs. But some of those blocks he has been making "blinds" with at different places on our acreage. If anybody notices and asks … and they shouldn't since they shouldn't be on our property … they'll be hunting blinds. He also plans to build some in trees and is getting supplies from some of the tore up trailers and buildings that are further away from us.

I've got a couple of days before I have another major round of canning that I have to do. Rather than be at loose ends … or unpack the mess in the spare bedrooms and closets that can be done when I'm stuck in the house due to cold or rain … I'm going to the Shack and pick up some of the things that Missy has from our list. She says there is probably more but she just hasn't had time to go through everything. I'll be trading labor and dried apples for whatever I find to bring home. I may not be able to bring it all home, but Missy promises to set it aside until Rand can bring the wagon.

Rand isn't happy about it but he knows someone has to stay home and keep an eye on things and he has finally gotten enough posts in the ground to be able to wire in the pond area and most of the palmetto area. Mr. Henderson is just waiting for us to finish that and then he'll deliver the heifer and calf.

 **October 25** **th** – OK, my shakes are gone enough that I can actually write and I want to get this all out.

Morning turned out to be cold; it was only in the low 50s when I left the house. The rifle was in a sling on Lou and the Smith and Wesson on my hip. I used to feel and little silly going out looking like Pancho Villa but not anymore, everyone dresses this way. Even kids like Mick and Tommy go around armed; each family has to decide for themselves how that works.

I also had a burlap bag of dried apples behind me and I was leading one of the mares. Rand has worked it out, we just don't have enough feed when you add in the cows, goats, pigs, and chickens. The sorghum will help after it comes in and we hope that the other grains make heads and not just straw, but horses eat a lot and these aren't doing any work for us as they are mostly some kind of fancy racing horse breed. Rather than letting them get fat and sassy Rand is trading the horse for an old incline horse mill. Rand said for all that it is old it is in pretty good condition since the man who Rand is trading the horse to had kept it up for demonstrations at the local county fair until he died three years ago. The man was looking for a way to leave the area and agreed to take the mare in trade.

Bill is acting as the middle man. The incline was moved to their property and I'll turn the horse over to Bill. Bill will hold the horse until the man picks him up (he was there waiting on the mare when I got there to approve the trade) and now Rand can get the thing and bring it home tomorrow.

As I was leaving our place Rand made me promise that even if I had to leave everything, including the mule and horse, to just come back in one piece and not to take unnecessary chances. I got a good sized kiss to bribe me to come home soon and then I was off into the misty morning, leaving Rand at the corner of CR49 and US90 where he had walked with me. Lou kept the mare in line for the most part but she didn't always want to mind and by the time I got her to Bill's place I was already tired and out of sorts.

The boys had been looking for me since sun up according to Alicia and ran over right away and helped take the mare, the apples, and Lou to be brushed down. Lou likes the boys, they've learned exactly the way he likes to be brushed and they'll talk to him too. I got a brusque greeting from Uncle George who looked too tired to be out of bed and then everyone scurried to get going on the morning chores.

As I come up to the Shack I see Missy hanging over the porch railing puking into the bushes. "These **** bushes should be the prettiest **** azaleas in the whole county for all the **** fertilizer I'm giving them."

Bill grinned and said, "She's having a hard time this morning. Come on and I'll show you where everything is. She really is happy you're here. I think part of the problem is she is trying to do too much. With you here at least she'll sit for a little while."

Basically, every room in the house had a different type of item … shoes, men's clothes, women's clothes, children's clothes, household items, a "grocery," etc. Even the small closets were utilized for things like office supplies, batteries (very few of them), sewing goods, and the like. My job was to take items out of the shed and sort them into the correct place by size, color, etc.

Did I mention that Missy is a bear for having everything organized? And to keep things that way she personally served anyone that came to the Shack. For instance, a man comes up and says that he is looking for a short sleeved work short. After they work out a trade Missy will has what size and whether he has a color preference. Because she keeps things organized she can go right to the item and be back quick which means she can serve a lot more people than you would think. This isn't like window shopping in the old days. This is you come in with a list and the proprietor gives you a couple of options to choose from if there are any, you make the trade and then you get gone or go play checkers or something like that.

A lot of people have been coming to the Shack to exchange gossip as much as anything else. They also watch what gets brought in to trade and carry that information out into the surrounding community. It makes for better advertising than anything else available right now.

I heard lots of interesting news (OK, so it was gossip, my apologies to Pastor Ken) without even trying to. Mrs. Winston now has to be confined in a chair because when she isn't she is violent and tries to hurt people and property alike. There have been two miscarriages and one birth in the last week. One of the miscarriages also caused the death of the mother and the woman who gave birth isn't doing so well either and is running a fever. The neighbor of the woman that gave birth is acting as a wet nurse for the baby as she was just starting to wean her own toddler. This was a win-win situation because the baby's father had been helping the woman out since her husband died in a raid. Everyone has a garden in or is trying. Johnny Forrester fell out of a pecan tree and broke his leg. I even saw Mr. Coffey and he told me to have Rand come by in a day or so as he has something for him. I assume that was code for the remainder of our sorghum.

People were complaining about their gardens being puny without the fertilizers and soil additives they've been using for years and I told them about the manure tea that Rand made. The oldsters cackled at my description but I noticed other people were listening in and that started a conversation on soil improvement as done by pioneers in this area and on crop rotation as well. Guess I need to talk to Rand about that one.

The Shack was closed for a few minutes so that we could grab a bite to eat and I hoped that Rand was doing OK by himself and would remember the loaf of bread I had put in the warming drawer after breakfast and would take the time to heat up the greens and beans from last night's dinner that I had put in the little water cooler than Rand had set up for us for the few times we had leftovers or needed to keep something cool for a day or two.

It was after lunch that I started to see more strangers and less locals. These people would come all the way from Lake City and some of the other outlying communities. The rural townspeople weren't so bad but some that said they came from Lake City were actually transplants from other areas like the relocation centers or the people who had stopped because they ran out of gas there months back when the big city exoduses had occurred.

Three in particular bothered me and apparently they bothered Missy and Bill too because I noticed a change in their demeanor and Bill told me to wait on anything new for a bit. I went in the back and decided to mind my own business, they had to have handled that sort of stuff before and start bagging the things that I had gathered. I found a commercial can opener that gets screwed down to the counter top; this will make opening #10 cans a lot easier. I found a washboard; its lightweight but it will work for almost everything but jeans and coats. I found a mop bucket that has a "wringer" on it. This thing is really big and had to have come from a school or hospital or something like that; it will sure save me some hand wringing of smaller items and maybe towels and t-shirts too. I found me a couple of pairs of work boots and some of that stuff that makes leather waterproof and keeps it supple. I found some more sewing machine needles and some other sewing needs in a box of notions that I brought in from the shed. I grabbed a couple of extra thimbles too and all the straight pins that I found … the long ones favored by quilters. Also in this box were a bunch of sewing patterns. Most of the patterns were for things I didn't need or wouldn't have any reason to wear but there were some in there like for unisex vests, aprons, children's pinafores, and nightwear that I was more than happy to find. I was also happy to find a good scissor sharpener and sewing machine oil.

I had taken a quick look in the "grocery" and really there wasn't anything in there that we didn't already have. There were a bunch of pecans in there, a few canned goods, some oils, some dried fruit but not much else. People were keeping their food at home unless they hit a windfall; similar to what we were using the dried apples for.

I was in the middle of trying to figure out how I was going to get all this stuff home and coming to the conclusion that I was going to have to lead Lou rather than ride him when I heard, "Bill!" and then a big boom.

If there is one thing besides practice, practice, practice that Rand impressed on me was that a gun should not be in your hand unless you are absolutely prepared to use it. You don't threaten and you never bluff, you are better off leaving the gun in your holster and running away.

I grabbed the Smith & Wesson and the rifle and ran up to the door of the room I was in and peaked as best I could. Because of the angle of the hall and where everyone was in the front room I could see Bill on the ground with blood on his face but awake and between Missy and the barrel of a gun pointed right at them. I couldn't see the owner of the gun however.

"We don't need to trade for squat. We're gonna take what we want and you ain't gonna say jack about it dude. And maybe we'll let you and the lady keep the brat she's got in her belly."

I went all cold. I hate that, I really do. I can feel all the feelings in me evaporate and I know it is happening and I can't seem to do a doggone thing about it. My temper … it gets nasty without my permission. I hadn't done it in a while and I'd begun to hope that I'd conquered it … nope. My anger took over and left that part of me that has a conscious to go along for the ride.

I dropped into a crouch and got on the other side of the hall and slowly crept down to the end. I vaguely recall hearing guns going off outside and the guys inside laughing. At the end of the hall I crouched down to get below where they'd likely be shooting if they turned my direction. It would also give me a better chance to roll behind the big bar that served as the store "front counter."

Bill said he saw me out of the corner of his eye and if he hadn't known who I was he wouldn't have recognized me right off the bat. I think he meant that I had my "ice face" on … at least that is what Aunt Wilma used to call it when I first came home from the hospital.

Then Bill said, "There's no need for the three of you to act like this … "

Three. He just let me know that there were three in the room. Thank you Bill, I hadn't only heard two distinct voices. I came around the corner gun up and aimed. I caught the guy with the rifle pointed at them full in the chest at nearly point blank range. The guy behind caught it in the side at nearly the same distance as he was turning away from the door. There was another guy looking out the window on the other side of the room and as he dived to get behind a chair, my arms had gotten shaky and dropped just enough to catch him in the both bumper cheeks. The other two were down and dead from shock or blood loss I don't know but the third guy was screaming and squealing.

Bill in the meantime had pushed Missy behind the counter, grabbed his own rifle that had been taken away when he went down and was aiming out the window. I don't know exactly what he saw but he yelled, "All clear in here!" I heard in return, "We're shy one. He dove under the house and we're trying to flush him out!"

I walked quietly through the house until I heard some noise coming from the back laundry room was … and the back door. I looked out the window and just saw someone crawling out at the corner of the house and trying to take off running. I shout out, "Back of the house, heading for the tree line!" The guy didn't make it. He tripped and went down and came up aiming to shoot when someone got him first.

I was shaking like a leaf; not from fear but from adrenaline. I knew from experience I was going to be puking any second and found a handy bush just in time. I look to find Mick holding a bucket of water and a washcloth. "You do that a lot. Are you sure you ain't gonna have a baby?"

"Ain't isn't a word and no I'm not going to have a baby. My body doesn't always like what my brain gets up to."

"Oh. Missy usually pukes in the azaleas. She says the acid is good for them."

I didn't know whether to laugh at how serious he was or cry that a little kid wasn't even affected by all the shooting. Ron's aunt came over … I guess she is some kind of trained nurse … and said that puking was better than having hysterics which is what one of the women out front was having. Once she said that I did unscramble what I was hearing and there was some woman out front having a pretty good fit.

It was an hour before things settled back down. Missy completed the trades of the people already in line but then shut the Shack as soon as she could. She was fairly pale … paler than she is normally … and Bill would growl at anyone that came too close. That's about the only thing that Uncle George looked happy about the whole time I was there.

He tried to go off on Rand letting me out by myself and I'd finally had enough of trying to be nice on this subject. "Mr. Crenshaw, I am not a dog that needs to be on a leash. I will come and go as I see fit. Rand and I discussed it and though he was concerned as you can imagine he trusted me … and you all … to do whatever was necessary if a dangerous situation occurred. He's got reason to trust me on this as you well know. Now stop picking on him! Just because you are in a foul mood doesn't mean you get to kick him around anymore. Was he your whipping boy when he was growing up too? From what I've seen … and not because Rand complains because all he ever does is defend you … no one speaks up for Rand too much and that is going to stop right here and now."

Brendon and the other kids just stood there with their mouths hanging open. I don't guess they'd ever heard anyone talk that way to their dad. I didn't want to cause family trouble but I had about had it. Maybe Rand was as wild as he said he was as a teenager but he wasn't that person anymore and it was about time some of them recognized it.

No one said anything, they just stood there. I was not going to play freeze tag so I walked to the barn and got Lou and saddled him up. By the time I was done with that and with loading the stuff from the Shack I was still pretty angry. Everyone was just sort of milling around. "Bill, I'm sure Rand will be by tomorrow or the next day to get that treadmill thingy. Tell Missy I said bye."

I was walking Lou down the lane when Uncle George said, "Girl you just don't understand."

"Oh please, tell me another. Do you know how many times I've heard that? Try this … life is short and then you die. Sometimes life is a whole lot shorter than you expect it to be. You think you have time to do what you put off only that time somehow is lost or is stolen from you. Here's another one … you don't get to pick. God let's things happen and sometimes those things happen to the people we love and care about. I don't know what I would do if I was to lose Rand tomorrow but I sure wouldn't be having any regrets about standing up for him today. I make sure he knows I love him all the time, not just when it is going to get me something or when I'm in a good mood. And what if it was me that was gone tomorrow? What if I had died today? Would he have known how I felt about him? I love him for who he is, not for who I wished he was. Rand may have been a pain as a teenager, I sure as heck was … but that was then and this is now and Rand has been working his heart out – first at university and now here – to make himself a better person, to make goals and reach them, to be a real man. I think he's doing a doggone good job of it and I tell him so. If you were to drop dead tomorrow Uncle George, what kind of words would he remember you saying to him?"

I sure hope I haven't messed things up for Rand. I'll be honest and say I'm more upset by that than I am about the stupid robbers now. I worried on it all the way home but I was still careful. It was late afternoon by the time I reached CR49. The sun was making its way to the west and the day was turning noticeably cooler again.

I was making my way down the highway when I saw Rand gallop out of the gate on Hatchet. He checked his speed when he saw me but still managed to come abreast of my location pretty quick. He jumped down off the horse and hugged me to him.

"Mr. Henderson came by earlier with some men to help me getting the last section fenced off. While he was there he got word from one of the patrols of the trouble at the Shack. Are you OK?"

"I'm fine. Just glad to be home."

"I shouldn't have let … "

"Oh, don't you start. I let you be the boss of me and I don't mind it but don't start with that 'letting' stuff."

"Are you sure you're OK? You … you seem upset."

"I … Rand, I popped off at your uncle. I'm sorry if it upsets you but I'm not sorry I did it."

As we walked back to the house I explained exactly what had happened. Then I went on to tell him about what I said to his uncle and why. By the time I finished he was getting so mushy I was afraid someone was going to see. Rand is real physical with his affection and he is forever catching me unawares with it. Bottom line Rand isn't angry at me, or upset with me. In fact all he said besides showing me that he liked how I stood up for him was, "You think it is any wonder now why Missy and Uncle George don't always get along?"

"I'm not like Missy."

"Not in everything, no … but in some of the ways that count when it comes to independence, loyalty, and stuff like that you are. Laurabeth and Charlene are like little sisters to me … but they will fold to their Dad with just one look from him even if it means giving up their own opinions. Janet was the one that was most like Missy but then she got sick and … well, I don't like to say it but I think Uncle George is trying to remold her into the way he thinks she ought to be. He won't let her get well because he is afraid if she does he'll lose her in the same way he lost Missy for a while."

"Are you sure you weren't studying psychology at UF?"

After he was done laughing Rand said, "I like people Kiri. To me they are the most interesting of God's creation. They come in so many different shapes and sizes and colors and personalities that you can't ever get bored with people watching. But as different as people are there are a lot of things they have in common. Maybe I analyze people too much, but I don't mean any harm by it."

I suppose we all have our hobbies. I'm not much for people myself but I enjoy it when Rand translates their nuttiness for me. It makes them easier to tolerate. I'm thinking though it would be nice if we could put warning labels on some people. At least then you could be prepared when they did something violent without cause and stuff like that.

I guess we'll find out tomorrow if I've messed things up with the Crenshaw clan. I don't know if I'm anxious to know or not. I like 'em and all but I wouldn't mind putting some distance between us and them if they are going to constantly have negative things to say.


	55. Chapter 54

Chapter 54

 **October 26** **th** – Didn't leave the house today, neither of us did. If it wasn't tending to the animals or checking on the garden we didn't go beyond the lanai. It rained cats and dogs all day long. We probably got the whole month's expected rainfall on one day.

I guess I can handle having to wait another day to see if I messed things up for Rand. He tells me not to worry about it. How can I not worry about it? Messing up my own life is one thing but messing up Rand's is totally wrong in so many different ways I can't even count them. I've already decided if I have to grovel I will; I'll do anything for Rand.

Rand on the other hand has a different opinion and we had a little bit of a tiff over it. "You are not going to apologize."

"Rand …"

"I mean it Kiri. Are you sorry you stood up for me? Didn't you mean what you said?"

"No. Yes … I mean no I'm not sorry I stood up for you and I did mean it. I just can't stand it that maybe I caused problems and …"

"One, you don't know you caused me any problems. Two … to be honest I'm tired of feeling like I always have to apologize for my past mistakes. I'm not the kid I used to be and it's time people started treating me different. I've moved out but they haven't moved on. Babe, you've done more for me … for making me feel like a real man … than you'll ever know. I don't even like to think about how I let Julia run all over me since we were just kids. I now know it wasn't really Julia I wanted but what having a relationship with Julia gave me … or what I thought it gave me."

This was getting a lot heavier than I thought it would.

"Babe, if there are problems, then maybe it was time there were problems. Maybe a little … separation … might do us all some good. It will give us some time to prove to ourselves that we can stand on our own if we need to. Maybe it will give Uncle George some perspective too."

"But what about the grain fields and … and all the work that you and Brendon do together? What about butchering season? What about …"

"Easy girl. We'll just have to work it out as it comes. I didn't say it would be easy, but it might be necessary."

I guess. But I'm still nervous.

And when I get nervous I get antsy. And when I get antsy the only thing I can do is work or I can make myself sick from nerves. And all the downstairs rooms were piled high with stuff and disorganized to the point I hated to even be inside during the day. It was as good a time as any so I started my fall cleaning. And since Rand couldn't really do any outside work he said he'd help which was great.

First room I worked on was the master bedroom. I have to stop calling it my parents' bedroom because it really isn't. Not anymore. And when the weather cools down to the point we are better off with a fire in the fireplace Rand and I will be moving downstairs. The first thing I wanted to do was to strip the bed and flip the mattress.

And that is when we found another hiding place. I can't remember my parents doing this. It doesn't mean that I didn't know about it at one point, just that it is gone from the ol' faulty memory banks now. But I we have another theory that is more correct.

Rand was helping me to flip the king-sized mattress when, "Ow! Babe, my sock is caught on something over here."

When I got around to his side of the bed I would see a nasty splinter and a bloody spot on his sock. "Oh my gosh. Hang on. Let me get the tweezers and a bandaid."

I was digging around in the first aid kit when Rand hollers, "Babe? Were your parents like pack rats or something?"

I was coming out of the bathroom and answered, "Yeah, kinda. Why?" And then I stopped. And looked.

Instead of the normal simple wooden frame that you find inside of a box springs Rand was lifting a whole sheet of plywood up. "Give me a hand with this."

The material that normally covered the top of the box springs had pulled away revealing two hinged doors. Once we got the mattress off and out of the way, finished pulling away the silky cover, and opened the hinged doors we found yet another storage space.

Inside the normally empty space were a dozen cans of olive oil, a few cases of canned bacon, a case of canned cheese, several number ten cans each of cream of wheat, 9-grain cereal, instant oatmeal, elbow macaroni, two cases of what claimed to be canned cakes from the mredepot, cans of powdered pudding mix, some cans of green coffee beans, some canned BBQ beef and pork, and a few other odds and ends tucked in the corners.

Something was wrong. My parents didn't have the money to spend on this fancy stuff; it didn't match any of their other storage preps. And I'd never even eaten cream of wheat until … and then I spotted the canned brown bread and the case of blackstrap molasses and two jugs of maple syrup and I knew as for sure as I could be. And it fit if I thought about it.

"This isn't something my parents did."

"You sure?"

"Almost totally positive. My parents wouldn't have stored stuff like this. It isn't what we normally ate at home. I sure don't think Momma would have bought canned cakes when it was cheaper for her to make her own; maybe a few items in here, but not really much of it. See those green coffee beans? Aunt Wilma was a coffee snob. She spent more money on expensive coffees that she would grind herself in a month than my parents would have dared to spend on Folgers for a whole year. The other thing … Uncle Charlie loved brown bread. Every 4th of July he would order a case of it so that he could have it for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Aunt Wilma didn't use any kind of processed sugar in her food so the maple syrup would have been her, sure as heck wouldn't have been my parents as that stuff is expensive. And the blackstrap molasses, Daddy ate that sometimes but only Briar Rabbit brand, this other stuff is the stuff that Uncle Charlie put in his coffee every morning."

Then after taking a closer look at the food and thinking about it I was able to say for sure that my parents hadn't done this. "I can prove this wasn't done by my parents. You see those Vigo dried soup mixes? I remember Aunt Wilma going into ecstasies when they first came on the market. That was after my family died and I had been living with Aunt Wilma for a couple of years."

"OK Babe, I believe you. Is it possible that your Aunt and Uncle … I don't know … had thought this was a good place to evacuate to? That maybe they had known about your parents' stash of stuff?"

I thought about his question while we unloaded everything and took it to the summer kitchen until I could separate it. "They may have suspected but I don't think they knew much. They would have … well, especially the dormer room … gotten into stuff more. There is a hidey hole under the kitchen cabinets that was empty. Uncle Charlie may have found it and taken whatever was inside. He used to work on the plumbing and stuff like that until I mentioned it to Mr. Barnes who put a stop to it by reminding them of the stipulations in the trust. It might also explain … I never understood why Uncle Charlie was just laying out in the open rather than going inside the barn or the house to die unless it was something that had happened quick. Or maybe … "

"Honey, if that was your uncle you found – and I do not doubt you just you said yourself you only ID'd him by a work shirt name label that seemed the same as the ones he wore – it doesn't matter anymore. He came up here, leaving you in Tampa to face who knows what. You said there was a broken liquor bottle. Maybe he was demented by then or even sick himself. He wouldn't be the first, or the last, to go crazy from grief and fear. Either way, the only question that remains as far as I'm concerned is whether this is the only hidden stash they made or if there are others … even some buried around the property."

"Weeellllll, if it was up to Aunt Wilma you aren't going to find anything buried outside. She was not the outdoorsy type and hated the very idea of mold or mildew or damp. I doubt there is going to be anything structurally in the house either … those trust stipulations and how Mr. Barnes would drop in to inspect things some times. The barn maybe?"

"No, there really isn't any place in the barn after you take out your Dad's junk room. All the walls on the inside are exposed block. The floor is a solid slab. Nothing in the loft either."

"Then they may have shot their wad with this or planned on bringing stuff with them maybe. The only other place I can think of … but … " I looked at Rand.

"Where?"

"The shed … maybe? But not the hidey hole that my dad had in there for the fuel canisters."

We headed out there and Rand grimaced, "Why does this thing look so different from everything else? What a mess!"

"Yeah, well. It's what is left of our original lean to. Daddy meant to do something about it eventually. Eventually never came."

"But the mess …?!"

"That was Uncle Charlie. He resented like heck that Daddy had built all of this and was younger than he was and was fair on his way to a good retirement when he got out of the military. Uncle Charlie started from a wealthy family but he was the youngest of five brothers and by the time he was old enough to get a piece of his father's car dealership, the only thing left was working for his brothers in the garage … he wasn't even a manager out there. Mr. Barnes overlooked this shed when he was writing up the trust stipulations and … well … this was Uncle Charlie's act of defiance."

Rand laughed and said, "You have got to be kidding me … that's … man, the more I hear about your aunt and uncle the luckier I feel. Uh … I didn't mean … "

I smiled to let him off the hook. It's not like I didn't stick my foot in my own mouth fairly often. "Yeah, well … I think you were lucky too. That's one of the reasons I hope I haven't … "

"Oh, let's not start that again. I'm not standing out here in the rain to argue. If this rain gets any harder we aren't going to be able to hear each other. Since you've already checked the concrete bench on this side what is on the other side?"

"Rand, I really don't expect to find anything out here. Aunt Wilma hated it out here."

"Which gives me an idea what we might happen to find, especially after some of the things you've said in the past. Here Sugar, move and let me get that bench."

"What do you … oh. Oooohhhhhh." After he moved the concrete bench Rand pulled up a bunch of bottles of liquor … the hard stuff. Aunt Wilma only let him have a beer or two on the weekends during the summer. She considered liquor a waste of good money and a good way for them to lose their lucrative foster license.

"Um, Rand, I never asked but do you …"

"Kiri, I did when I was wild but I got to where it was … it was a problem. It got to be where I had to drink to have a good time. The youth pastor at the church dared some of us that he knew drank to stay sober at any of the parties we went to and see if we still had fun … and what we thought of how the other kids who did drink were acting. If we drank, he wanted us to give him a call and he would come pick us up. He was a good guy. He tactics didn't work for everyone but they worked for me. I stopped drinking cold turkey and … I was tempted a couple of times at UF – it's a big party school and it is hard not to want to be a part of things – but I didn't. I was too worried about keeping my grades up or losing my scholarship."

"Rand … I wasn't even … I didn't mean to sound like I was being judgmental. I just meant … well, if you want this stuff but I actually meant, if you didn't mind, I'd like to set the brandy aside for preserving the Christmas fruit cakes and if we could save the vodka and other clear stuff for tinctures and things like that."

Rand looked at me and I tried not to be embarrassed at the can of worms that I had opened and then he started laughing. "You know something? I love you."

We looked around and what we found could have stocked a small liquor store. It made me wonder if Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie had had the same priorities. Aunt Wilma stocking food … but it was all just specialty stuff, nothing that would provide long-term sustainability …and Uncle Charlie stocking liquor but nothing else from what I could see. On the other hand it did seem to fall into the "store what you eat" type of prepping.

The boxes of liquor bottles are on the floor in the hidden pantry for now. We have to decide what to do with it later. I've tripped on those boxes every time I've gone in there today and it is getting irritating.

The rest of the day we spent going room by room trying to unpack and reorganize. We moved all of the clothes into the master bedroom his and her closets, the dresser, and the chest o' drawers. We set aside two sets of sheets and a few extra blankets and pillows and then loaded all the extra bed linens into the space in the box springs. That really did help. We unrolled all of the rugs we had and put them down in every room in the house except for the kitchens. It was going to mean more work for me in once sense but Rand actually did me a favor and fixed the non-electric rug sweeper and now I wouldn't have to roll them up and take them out and beat them to clean the rugs.

In Rand's things from his parents was some old oil lamps – some of these were so pretty it was hard to believe they were actually practical – and candle sconces. Rand had brought some kerosene with him and some white gas too but we hadn't needed to use it. When the days get significantly shorter we might though. There was a couple of antique wind up clocks that hung on the wall or set on a table or ledge. We replaced some of the battery operated clocks with those. We put his family photo albums on the shelves with mine and they all became ours. We took most of the preparedness books and moved them to the dormer room which left room in the bonus room bookcases for Rand's books.

We got the master bedroom finished and Rand's old bedroom emptied and straightened up. Most of the third bedroom has been finished as well. The last room was the one with the baby stuff in it and I plan on working on that one tomorrow. It is the messiest and now that almost all of our other storage areas are bursting at the seams I'm going to have to think about where I want to put stuff.

The old washer and dryer were moved out onto the lanai, Rand capped off the dryer vent, and we moved all the stackable plastic drawers we have in there. I labeled every draw and we arranged them alphabetically. Those drawers helped us to organize all the small stuff that didn't really have a home.

Rand has to leave early in the morning so he is already sleeping but I got up after he fell asleep since I was still antsy. I think I'm finally to the point I can sleep and not just toss and turn. Fraidy and Woofer are sleeping on the new rug we brought upstairs. They are really cute.

 **October 27** **th** – As Rand told me, "It wasn't unexpected Babe. Just let it go for now." It isn't as easy for me to ignore as it seems to be for him. "Kiri, it's not the end of the world. When Uncle George figures out we're not folding to his emotional blackmail then he'll get over it. Or he won't and it still won't be the end of the world. We'll figure it out."

The rain ended during the night and the cool, low-humidity weather behind it dried everything much faster than I thought it would.

"Babe, call me a worrywart if you want, but I'm gonna ask you to stay around the home site while I'm gone today. My plan is to be back by lunch, grab a bite to eat, then head off to Mr. Coffey's with the wagon right after that."

I honestly didn't mind as much have I might have. I woke up with the sniffles, probably from all of the unpacking and rearranging yesterday. Some of that stuff was pretty dusty.

Rather than a large breakfast Rand asked if I could make him a couple of bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits. The case of canned bacon we found yesterday had tempted us both. The one problem I noticed as soon as I opened the can was that it had a lot more slices in it than Rand and I would use in a single meal. And without refrigeration there was going to be a lot of waste if we weren't careful.

Rand was off and I watched him until I couldn't even hear the jangling of the mules' harnesses and then went back inside and set out my plan for the day. I started the day by wiping down the dehydrators and filling them both up with more apples. I had to toss two trays of apples that had gotten ruined in the heavy rain but Taz loved them. Taz also got most of the apple cores and peels.

The mosquitoes were worse than I expected so I had to put on a long sleeved shirt and then I went out to the garden. The beets were in so I pulled most of them as well as anything else that I needed to deal with. I spent the remainder of the morning canning plain beets, pickled beets, beet relish, and beet-apple relish.

For lunch I made a nice green salad from the lettuce that was still coming in and rice pilaf and Apple Pecan Burgers. Everything was ready when Rand arrived home pulling the incline. He was in such a good mood I thought at first everything was fine. While we were eating thought it became apparent that everything was not all right.

"Babe … come on. Everything is going to be fine. He's more miffed that I wouldn't take the bait and ask him what was wrong. I used to fall for it because I couldn't stand the pressure. I'm stronger than that now. Laurabeth and Charlene stayed in the house and didn't even come out to say hello which was pretty par for the course. Alicia was on the porch and waved which was pretty brave for her. She's caught between a rock and a hard place and I don't blame her. The boys acted like nothing was wrong. Oh yeah, Mick said that you tossed your cookies, you didn't tell me that."

Being reminded of my embarrassment didn't help me to feel any better and Rand continued, "Bill and Missy said to say hello and I've got a couple of boxes of things tied to the incline that if you could untie and bring in while I'm off to Mr. Coffey's would help. Missy asked that we save the boxes for her as they are running short."

"Maybe we should have sent a box of that stuff we found yesterday to your Uncle. Maybe it would have … "

"And maybe Uncle George needs to learn that he can't twist and turn me the way he used to. This is as good a time as any for him to learn it. Look at me Beautiful. I mean it. One way or the other things will work out and I don't want you worrying it to death."

"It bothers me Rand."

"Don't let it. Now let me have a kiss so I can go hook Bud and Lou to the wagon and get out of here so I can get back before it gets too late. It is going to take time to unload the wagon when I get home and I don't want to have to do it in the dark."

For dinner I planned to use up the canned bacon making BLTs. But first I wanted to try and finish that last bedroom, or at least make a good dent in it.

First I took all the baby stuff out and set it to the side and that let me get at everything else. I noticed most of the mess was craft supplies and things like that so I was able to halve the mess really fast by taking it all upstairs to the bonus room that I had designated as the sewing room. The rest of it was just a matter of finding places to tuck things. After I had finished with that I moved the baby stuff back into the room and just for the heck of it arranged everything so that it looked nice.

I was at loose ends so I took some pecans out on the front porch and started cracking them. Every once in a while I would find one that was nasty and I'd drop that into a bucket to give to Taz. I was on my second pail of nuts and it was getting later than I thought Rand had meant to come home when I heard the wagon coming back very slow. There was a prancing horse as well and then Hoss came around the screen and said, "Hey Kiri, Rand's been hit. No, no … I didn't say that well now did I? I mean literally hit but not by bullets. Not even the highwaymen have a lot of ammo these days."

Well when I put my heart back in my chest and ran out I could see that Hoss, poor choice of words or not, was correct. Rand was pretty roughed up but seemed to be in fairly good spirits. "They didn't get the sorghum Babe."

"To heck with the sorghum! Look at what they did to you!"

It really wasn't as bad as it looked at first but I'm still not real happy. Rand wouldn't let Hoss leave until he gave him a jar of syrup which Hoss gratefully accepted with embarrassment. He's trying to work for Mr. Henderson and help out his family that lives over near Uncle George at the same time, the syrup will probably find its way over there on his next day off.

The barrels of sorghum are sitting in the barn until we can figure a better place for them. Rand was hungry and he was half way through his first sandwich before he told me that Mr. Coffey wanted to trade for two of the remaining horses. His grandson (a man older than Rand) needed some way to get around and he's too tall to ride around on a donkey.

"I'll trade him the gelding and one of the mares. I'm having second thoughts about breeding horses. I think we might be better off breeding mules. I'm keeping this last mare until I decide what to do."

So we've got a lot of stuff accomplished the last two days but it is beginning to feel like the lull before the storm. I can't exactly put my finger on it. We're cleaning up, getting ready, making sure all our ducks are in a row. Rand thinks that I'm just worrying more because I'm tired and unsettled about this thing with the Crenshaws but I'm not sure. That crazy guy was on the radio again saying the same sorts of things … death to America, yada, yada, yada … but this time he had one or two people responding to him and egging him on. There were also more sightings of large ships in the Gulf of Mexico and of some kind of major explosion at Mobile, Alabama.

What I was feeling before … it feels like it is getting closer. Every little thing that happens or that I hear of happening adds another straw on the camel. I just wish I knew for sure what I should be worrying about the most, the uptick in real problems we've got going on close to home or the stuff that is going on out in the world.


	56. Chapter 55

Chapter 55

 **October 28** **th** – Well, it turns out that Mr. Coffey's grandson is a goldmine … OK, not literally, but figuratively he sure is by some measures. We are going to get a freezer in exchange for the two horses. It has to be on the quiet so Rand is going to build a room in the barn to accommodate it. Basically, if I am understanding it, they are going to take a propane type refrigeration system … which Mr. Coffey's grandson already has several of since he was in that green energy business before and brought a bunch of his junk with him … and utilizing the ammonia gas system and a special lens you get "heat exchange" or something like that. Rand drew me a picture, it didn't help much. It looks like a regular refrigerator … he said we are getting one called an EZ-Freeze … that has a hose that would connect to a propane tank. Only instead of utilizing propane to heat the ammonia gas we'll use a Fresnel lens (curved kind of like a lighthouse lens) to concentrate sunrays and generate enough heat to generate the heat exchange. It isn't very big but at eight cubic feet it is enough to cool down meat and stuff to make sausage and to save food from one day to the next to keep it from spoiling.

It sounds simple but I have a feeling if it was as simple as it sounds it would be a lot more common than it was pre-pandemic. I can see right off the bat that one of the drawbacks would be what happens if the sun doesn't come out … like it rains all day, or for a couple of days. And what if you get a gas leak or your lens breaks? When I asked Rand about it he said that nothing comes without risks but this was as close as we were likely to get. The horses really didn't cost us anything to begin with, they were "found assets." The refrigeration, even if it just gets us through the first butchering season, will be a tremendous benefit. He emphasized though he didn't want anyone else to know about it, whether it was the Crenshaws or Henderson and his men. Word about something like this would spread and we'd become a target.

"Keeping this to ourselves and proving we can keep our mouths shut … well, I have a feeling that Ben Coffey just may have some other ideas he'd like to try out, may already be trying out, and we might get some side benefits from that."

I suppose, but I just don't trust something that sounds too good to be true. I think I will just keep on doing as many things without the need of a frig or freezer as I can that way if the thing doesn't work or breaks I'm not out too much. Rand calls that my "redundancy fetish" and he thinks it's "cute." I'll give him "cute" if he ever calls me that in public.

I'm actually excited about it even if I might not sound like it; but, Momma always warned against counting your chickens before they were hatched. Take the Bantam corn for example; I thought there would be a lot more corn from the rows I planted than there actually was. It is too late in the season to plant more, plus I have to hold some seed back to plant next season's crop which has to be bigger than this season's crop. I've got two other chances that I hope will help. The first one is a corn called Country Gentleman, the other is called Hickory King. But neither one is a yellow corn; Country Gentleman is a white shoepeg corn (and I have yet to figure out what that means), and the Hickory King is a dent corn that hopefully I'll be able to dry.

The other thing is that the chickens are slowing down on their eggs. I thought we'd get more. Rand said it is natural. As the days shorten and the weather gets cooler they stop laying as much. Good thing I have all of those powdered eggs.

And clothes … I thought about clothes as I washed our clothes and hung them out on the line first thing this morning. I now understand why women used to wear those huge aprons all the time. The aprons catch splatters, dirt, and ashes before they could ruin their dresses. Rand and I are trying to be more careful with our clothes too. When he's working outside Rand wears these Dickey coveralls or a pair of bib overalls if it is too hot for the coverall. I wear big canvas aprons when I can, sort of like I used to wear when I worked at the diner. I've certainly got a pile of them … Momma had a thing for aprons. Some of them are really pretty and she only wore them at the different holidays or when Daddy brought home important people from the base but most of them are meant to be work aprons, but even those are pretty.

I needed something to make me feel pretty today. Cassie came by and she had Julia with her. Mitch was driving Julia back to Ron's place and the two had wanted to stop in to see us. I still don't know what to make of the visit but I didn't want to embarrass Rand or make Mitch any more uncomfortable than he already very obviously was.

Julia is really big now. I wasn't sure how to go about asking when the baby was due without bringing up potentially uncomfortable subjects so I just told her she glowed … which wasn't a lie, she really does make for a pretty looking person. I asked them all if they'd like something to drink. Mitch said they couldn't stay long but was happy to get away for a few moments with Rand to look at Taz. I hadn't moved the chairs off of the porch yet so all I needed to do was set a small table there and fetch some glasses and the tea. I also brought out some cookies that I had baked.

I don't think they knew what to say any more than I did but then Julia asked, "How do you keep up with it all?"

"Keep up with what?"

"The cooking, cleaning, laundry, garden … just everything. How do you keep up with it?"

I told her about having specific chores for specific days so that I wasn't trying to do everything every day. "So you do all the laundry on one day?"

"If I can get away with it. And as you can see Rand and I have started trying to protect the clothes we do wear so I usually only have one load of really dirty stuff and I can wash it separate from everything else."

Cassie said, "I'm so glad I don't have to do any of that. Tia Cia takes care of it all."

For the first time I saw Julia snap at her friend, "Yeah Cass … and who do you think is going to do it for you when Tia Cia gets too old, or gets sick or something. God, you're such a princess."

Whoa. Then after another uncomfortable silence Julia looked around and not seeing the men leaned over and asked me, "Does Rand … does he hate me?"

"Um … I don't think that is actually something I should be talking about … "

"Look, I know I messed things up. Just tell him … just tell him … that I don't blame him for anything if he does. I just … I know I made mistakes and now … now I'm paying for them. I don't want to spend the rest of my life feeling like I feel right now. Ron … he's different … from the way he used to be I mean. He's always going on about not wasting the second chance we got. We're … working on things. I just …," and then she kind of sputtered out of words to say.

"Look Julia, I can't speak for Rand but … I think he is dealing with the way things turned out. That's all I can say; that's all I'm gonna say. You want more, man up and go talk to him yourself."

"You're mad at me too."

"Not really Julia. If I think about it too much then yeah, I can get angry but right here, right now? I just don't like being put in the middle of stuff and the stuff between you and Rand that came before me and Rand … I consider it NOMB."

Cassie was the one that asked. "NOMB?"

"None of my business."

"Oh."

Julia said, "Look, I will … I just … not right now. I'd mess it up. I know I would. And people would talk. They're already talking. I hate going anywhere. People always look and stare."

"Julia, people were looking and staring at you before all of this, it was just for a different reason. I've had to put up with people looking and staring ever sincee the accident. I don't like it but there isn't a whole lot I can do about it. You learn to ignore the people who do it and get on with your life. Or you go crazy. I tried both … I prefer getting on with my life, it's a lot less work."

The guys came back and Mitch packed everyone up and then they were off.

"Thanks."

"Huh?"

"Thanks … for being civil. I know the two of them. They can be …"

"Rand, I'll tell you like I told Julia and please, please don't take this the wrong way. What went on between you and her? As long as it doesn't deal with our here and now I consider it none of my business. It's not that I don't care it's … I just don't want to make things harder and thinking about … you know, her and you, together … I just don't like it."

"What brought this on? Did she upset you?!"

"No! Don't go getting all upset. That's not it at all Rand. If you want to know the truth I think she is sorry. Sorry about what I'm not exactly sure but she admitted the place she now finds herself in is her own fault. And as long as she isn't trying to get you back – or get back at you – I can let it go at that. Can you?"

He did that scrunchy thing with his eyebrows that he does when he's thinking something over. After a pause he said, "Yeah. I don't really think about her much anymore. What kind of guy does that make me?"

"One that has moved on. Trust me. I learned about moving on when I had to learn about letting go of how angry I was at the drunk who killed my family. I can't tell you the last time I really thought about him. Do I get angry if I think about it? Yeah … but not so much at the guy anymore as at that it happened at all. The guy just became a nonentity for me. I can barely even remember what he is supposed to look like. He is the past. This … and us … this is my present and my future. Does that make sense or does it sound too corny?"

Rand gave me one of his grade A hugs and said, "No, it doesn't sound corny and it does make sense, at least to me. I used to be mad at the doctors because they couldn't save my mom. You have to let some things go or you'll destroy yourself over them. Lot's of people are going to have to do that … get passed all the people they've lost in this pandemic and all the violence that has come along with it." And then after a deep sigh, "Look, if she asks again … and if you are in the mood to tell her … say … say that I'm OK and over it and getting on with my life and that I … I guess I figure now isn't the time to hold grudges. We've got more important concerns in life."

And work, we've definitely got work to do.

Today the first variety of popcorn – Japanese Hull-less – was harvested. We can't pop it yet, it needs to dry a little more. But we lost several ears to birds and squirrels. They've learned that Fraidy and Woofer can't get in the garden fence. So Rand is thinking about putting a doggy door in there, we'll just have to lock it during the night.

It's always something. But even with what we consider to be our biggest problems and set backs we are so far ahead of a lot of folks around here. We haven't seen Pastor Ken very much lately. He's been very busy ministering to people – weddings, funerals, comfort, and care. Rand has been hearing all sorts of talk.

People are hungry. Many of them were dependent on the military and National Guard bringing food in. Those that have overcome that are struggling to raise any kind of garden without automation or chemical fertilizers. Even if they've been able to get a garden going they are fighting thieves … human and animal … and realizing that it is very difficult to subsist off of a garden.

People are thirsty. No more working well pumps. Ponds and lakes are becoming contaminated with human and animal waste and the clean open water sources are insufficient for all of the people taking bucket after bucket of water out of them. The free flowing water sources, like the Suwannee and some of the local springs, just aren't that easy to get to and transport water from in sufficient quantity.

People are dirty. Water shortages means washing is a lower priority to cooking and drinking. But this is creating environments that bacteria and junk can grow in, making people sick.

People are depressed, sick, angry and a lot of other things that aren't healthy and it is this that keeps Pastor Ken the busiest. Getting people to meet together and work together is helping but people resist this, sometimes out of suspicion and sometimes out of pride.

And those of us who are succeeding? We feel like we have to be very careful. People are unpredictable.

 **October 29** **th** – No church services today. Rather than go out … we had thought about going to Itchnetuckee for a picnic … we decided just to hang out and have a rest day. I don't know exactly how "restful" it was but we got caught up on our inventories and plans and that was something that had started to bug both of us.

Later in the afternoon I made a treat for us, Spiced Pecans. I took enough powdered egg whites to make the white of one egg and then dumped in three cups of pecan halves stirring until the nuts are completely moistened. In a bowl I mixed together a half cup of sugar, a half teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of cinnamon, a half teaspoon of ground cloves, and a half a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. I sprinkled the spices over the moist nuts. I then baked them for thirty minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven, stirring them two times to keep them from burning. They smelled so good.

It was nice to have something sweet to go with the sour news we listened to on the radio.

Some of the radio operators try to perform a service. Technically they aren't supposed to just be broadcasting like a radio show, they are supposed to be having a conversation but sometimes you just have to do what you can do. Directions on how to collect water and purify it is being passed around. How to cook certain types of greens. Information on places you want to avoid if you are traveling. Messages are being called out to try let people know their loved ones are still alive.

Some of the news isn't very good at all. There are rampant diarrheal diseases running around the country. And no, that wasn't an attempt to make a bad joke. What is scary is a lot of this stuff is real third world like the cholera and dysentery outbreaks. Lots of upper respiratory stuff too from exposure now that the weather is cooling off around the country.

Then you have the lawlessness. It has tapered off now that citizen groups have formed in earnest … that is a quote from a one of the conversations we overheard … but now there are fights between citizen groups over scarce resources, hunting areas, etc. Basically say you have Small Town A, then a nature area or preserve or federal lands, then Small Town B. Both Small Town A and Small Town B claim the land that is between the two. If the area is big enough with enough resources it is fine but if it is a relatively small area with limited resources … it can turn into a free for all with very little provocation. Think the Hatfields and the McCoys with a lot of tit for tat actions.

Rand was saying that even as cut back as our population currently is, if we return to a totally agrarian society, there may still be too many people in some areas.

The most worrisome of all if that there was a "landing" of foreigners around Port Charlotte. These "foreigners" were heavily armed and quickly overpowered the locals but the military was in the area and it reportedly was a route after that. The military was all over it after that and there has been a news blackout since. So the question being asked is whether this was just a onetime pirate or "boat people" type of event or if this was a precursor of the worried about invasion.

Scary stuff.

 **October 30** **th** – Chili on the menu tonight. It's getting cooler. I've also noticed the days are getting shorter too. Before, I usually had some daylight left to write by but not now.

Rand and I were kind of bummed when we woke up this morning; hard not to be after what we listened to last night but the day got better. Uncle George came by with Brendon. He brought two gilts with him … that is female pigs that haven't had babies yet. Let me tell you, Taz thought it was Christmas. We put the gilts in the new pig yard that Rand had built. A nice tree, located outside of the yard, was big enough to shade half of the pig pen; one quarter of the yard got filtered sunlight, and the last quarter got full sunlight. Rand told me pigs get sunburned really easy so you have to be careful. The tree had dropped a lot of acorns into the pig pen and as soon as the two gilts calmed down from being transported away from all their friends they started snuffling and snorting and chewing those acorns right up. I also put some garden scraps in the pig trough and they liked that too.

Then Rand, with Brendon and Uncle George's help, moved Taz into a little penned off section. You should have heard him trying to sweet talk the gilts. Both the gilts and Taz have a little house they can go into for the night if they choose. The walls of the pig pen are solid for now until we can try and make it safe for them to have a regular fence.

I hurried up and made a little more for lunch but Uncle George hemmed and hawed about it being too much trouble.

"You're Rand's uncle … the only one he has as far as I know. Don't tell me what is too much trouble please."

By the time he was finished eating the greens, beans, and bread I fixed he was in a more relaxed mood and he sure didn't turn down the spice cake that I had made. He got talkative too. They are having their own challenges with their garden. Squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and even humans have done their fair share of raiding. They've also had trouble with rats in the feed barn and had to trade for a mother cat and kittens to try and take care of the problem.

They are shooting for the week before or the week after Christmas for butchering depending on the weather. "When we do start it we need to be quick. Henderson has had a lot of trouble with beggars coming by to demand that he kill his herds to feed all the hungry people around. I don't want any more notice taken of us that absolutely necessary and you'll both need to come to help out. It's going to be a lot of work without the extra help I normally hire. How's them goats of yours?"

Billy is just as mean as ever but the two female goats are real ladies, one of them is a little ditzy though. We tried them on in a fenced enclosure but this goofy female goat keeps getting her head stuck so Rand put up the solid panels again. I think she might be far sighted or something because every once in a while she just seems to walk into the panels and then she jumps back like she startled herself. I told Rand and he laughed so hard when I asked him if goats ever wore glasses. I didn't think it was that funny, I've seen horses that wear blinders.

Brendon helped Rand split a little firewood while Uncle George looked around. He noted the fence that Rand had finished and now we were just waiting for Mr. Henderson to bring the cow and calf. He saw all that we had done … really looked at it for the first time I think. I just stood back and let him. When they left I watched him say something to Rand and Rand's look of surprise that followed it.

Found out later that Uncle George had praised him for all the progress he had made and it wasn't followed by a "but … " or anything. I know that made Rand happy. Maybe I said what needed saying after all.

 **November 1** **st** – Pretty momentous day. Mr. Henderson brought the cows. Yes, that's right … cows. Two heifers and their calves. He wouldn't let us say anything about the extra, just said it was something he could do so he was doing it. And one of the calves is a boy … a little bull. The two Momma cows aren't related so we have the start of some breeding stock. Rand had to hurry up and build a couple of more stalls in the barn … it sure is getting full at night when we put all the animals up.

I milked a cow for the first time today! Yippeee! It was fun but I've just added at least two extra hours of work to my day. And I haven't got a clue what I am going to do with all that milk!

Ben Coffey came by with the refrigerator today too. It takes at least a day before it is cool enough to do anything with so we drank our fill and are trying to save the extra milk in the cold water cooler. Mr. Henderson said that we'll likely get at least twelve gallons of milk per day from the cows. Oh my goodness. If we don't milk them they'll go dry after the calves wean but I hate the idea of wasting any of it. If the milk is soured in the morning I'll use it for cooking. I'm just having a hard time imagining Rand and I being able to go through twelve gallons of milk a day. Boy do I have homework. I had no idea that cows made so much milk every day!

I think I finally finished harvesting all of the dried beans and getting them put in containers in the pantry. Sometimes I just stand in there and look around and feel so good.

Of course then I remember that there are people all around us that could be starving. I told Rand that we could spare some bushels of apples but he doesn't want to. He said if people came asking for work we'd pay them in food but the few times he's been approached they just have their hand out. So I continue to dry or juice the apples, at least a batch every day.

I give the leftovers to Taz and his harem and Ol' Billy and his. Pretty Boy and his brood don't do too badly either. Even Rand looks like he has stopped losing weight. I'm glad.

Sometimes all of our blessings make me feel guilty, something I never really felt before over the money Mr. Barnes managed. Rand said I shouldn't. He said God didn't mind people being well off, He just wanted people to acknowledge where it all came from. Then he got a pensive look on his face and said, "If they would just ask for work instead of a hand out." I guess it isn't always easy for him to overlook the suffering around us either. But he has standards and I guess that is just one of them.

Weather has warmed back up a little. Almost reached eighty degrees today but there wasn't much humidity. That was nice.

More crazy talk on the radio. You just never know what to believe any more. We keep getting opposing reports about what happened down in Port Charlotte. Haven't hear the crazy guy on the radio for the last little bit. Now there are a couple on the radio talking like they are the KKK and white supremacist. If it isn't one flavor of crazy it is another


	57. Chapter 56

Chapter 56

 **November 2** **nd** – Cleaned the house today top to bottom but it didn't take much effort, Rand and I don't make any more mess than we can help and I just finished reorganizing everything. It helped to keep my mind off of things when I wasn't doing other stuff. Also Rand and I ate watermelon until we were practically sick, juice rolling down our chins. Getting the watermelon and beefsteak tomatoes from the garden were one of the few bright spots in the day.

First off the weather, this has been the coldest day yet. It was overcast and we never saw the sun at all; it got no higher than sixty-five degrees and according to the little weather station that Rand has set up we were getting 10 mph winds out of the N and NNE, though the wind has let up now that the sun is down. It was dark by 5:45 which made serving dinner a challenge. We ate in the summer kitchen with stools pulled up the island. Tomorrow we'll start eating dinner about five o'clock in the breakfast nook where the bay windows are and hopefully we'll be finished and I'll have things cleaned up and in the dish drainer before I have to use the lantern. If we get hungry I can always make warm milk or popcorn.

Rand expects it to drop down into the upper 40s tonight. We debated on whether we should move downstairs but we are trying to wait a while longer simply because we are so comfortable up here in the dormer room. I know the 60s are probably tropical compared to what some people are living with right now in other areas but I've lived in Florida so long that the 50s and 60s are just plain cold. The only thing I can say is that the humidity is so low that we don't sweat much when we work.

Milking is interesting. Rand suggested that for now I just milk in the morning and let the calves feed all day. When the calves wean I'll have to milk morning and night – he said we'll both do it since there are two cows so that it will get done faster.

The milk I was trying to save last night separated overnight. It's nice to know that I can use this way of doing that just in case the refrigerator goes south at some point. I scalded the old gallon jar butter churn that my Dad bought at some flea market or other. I nearly burned myself with the boiling water but I didn't want any icky stuff in the food I am trying to make. Then I skimmed off the cream from last night's milk and dumped it in the jar, screwed the lid in place and then got a sore arm turning the crank handle. The butter, once it made, was a big glop in all of this liquid that is buttermilk. I poured that into another dish and stuck it in the frig with the milk from this morning's milking.

I poured fresh water on the butter glop and rinsed the butter and poured it off several times until the water stayed clear. After draining the last water off I dumped the butter glop onto a plate and then had to squish the remaining water out of it use a couple of clean plastic paddles. When that was done it was still a little squishy so I put it into a plastic storage container and put it in the fridge. For all the work, it didn't seem like a lot of butter. Rand laughed and told me it takes about two and a half gallons of milk to make one pound of butter. I got about a stick's worth of butter today and we used it on the honey-buttermilk cornbread I made for dinner. The buttermilk was what I poured off of the churned butter. Cooking from scratch is neat but you sure have to plan ahead. I'm hoping that the cooler will help me not make too many mistakes.

The skim milk that was leftover after I took the cream is what we drank today and what I used to make hot cocoa tonight. This whole milking business is pretty neat … a lot of work, but still kinda neat. Tomorrow I'm going to try making white cheese. I've watched it being made by Mrs. Belle but I never got to do it myself, she was that particular. It's basically just a gallon of milk and a cup of vinegar. How hard could it be? And besides, I'm dying for some fried cheese. And according to some recipes that I've found, after you've clabbered milk for cheese you can drain off the liquid from the curds – this is the whey – and then make ricotta out of that. I'll really fatten Rand up if I can make ricotta. Old fashioned cheese cakes were actually made from ricotta rather than cream cheese. I was talking about this stuff to Rand tonight and he got silly and starting chasing me around the house growling, "Yum! Yum!" Gosh, he can be so silly sometimes.

Saw Pastor Ken for the first time in a while and he really didn't look good at all. Rand and I wouldn't take no for an answer and we got him to come sit down to eat lunch with us. The watermelon perked him up but it never got rid of the darkness behind his eyes all together. A lot of the old folks are dying. Different reasons … health problems catching up with them, depression, accidents, just plain giving up. Momma O is struggling too. If Paul hadn't gotten really serious about a girl Momma O practically helped to raise and them talking about marriage so soon she might have just given up by now.

"I hate to say this but Paulie getting married and possibly starting a family would likely give Momma O a reason to live. She's getting to the stage in life that setbacks like she's had can be life threatening."

"What kind of setbacks?"

"I don't suppose you've ever met Paulie's brother? No? Well, he is confined to a wheelchair and his health always has been precarious even under the best of circumstances. Well, he had a seizure or stroke, I can only guess at this point, and he's going downhill rapidly. His parents are resigned, have been since he was born the way he was, but Momma O just isn't dealing with it well at all. And they've had some setbacks with their friends … people that think they are leading a privileged life protected by Henderson and his men. Momma O was already lonely, now she feels intentionally cut off."

"Would it help if Kiri and I were to go visiting more often?"

"Maybe. Couldn't hurt. Kiri, I hate to ask you … and I can understand if you … How do I put this? Momma O really enjoyed you asking her about the gardening and looking for hints on how to do things. It made her feel … useful … important. I'm not asking you to lie but if you could … "

"Stroke her ego a little? It's not a problem Pastor. I actually like talking to Momma O. She stood by us and did for us when no one else would. And besides, she probably has forgotten more than a lot of people know right now."

I feel bad for Momma O, and bad for Mrs. DeLois too who had to try and manage everything when her mother is depressed or sick. This Sunday is a scheduled church service. Rand and I are going to see about maybe arranging another work day like we did for the Harbingers and then we'll see about other visiting days too.

That wasn't the only bad news that the Pastor had to share. There is still a lot of the thieving and raiding going on. Not so much around here or over on the road where Rand's family lives but River Road is getting hit pretty regularly – it used to be the "rich" side of town and people think it still is I guess – in the outlying areas like Mayo, Lee, Dowling Park, McAlpin, Luraville, and Wellborne.

And we've got a couple of cases of some kind of diarrheal illness … possibly norovirus or shigella. It hits hard and fast so the Pastor has warned us to be very careful of anything (or any one) we come in contact with.

All of that was just lovely news on top of the stuff we've been hearing on the radio. Same stuff as before, just more of it. The incident down in Port Charlotte is really being played up, or maybe it really is as serious as some people are making it out to be. It is so hard to know. Rand said that the mainstream media was pretty stupid by the time the last president took office but they did serve a purpose, at least with their cameras and talking heads you got some view of what was going on.

It's been dark so long it feels like I've been up forever but not really. But I am tired and Rand is nodding off over his book too so I'll stop here and get us both to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a full day … as always.

 **November 3** **rd** – Today was supposed to be baking day but mostly I was canning and making cheese. The beefsteak tomatoes are coming in and what we don't eat fresh I'm canning tomato juice with. Next week I want to can some soups that I can just open and heat up on those nights when I don't feel like cooking and the tomato juice will really come in handy.

I've got a half dozen watermelons sitting on the kitchen counter that I haven't done anything with. They are really ripe so within the next day or so I need to get going. The rinds from the watermelon we ate yesterday I split between the chickens and pigs. I made sure and give the chickens enough so that they wouldn't start fighting over it. There is one cranky hen that is always batting at the chicks if they get in her way. Methinks she is going to be the first fryer if she keeps this up. The goats lipped at one of the rinds I gave them but they were much more interested in the beet tops that I tossed in from the last batch of beets that I pulled.

Of course I didn't throw all of that watermelon rind to the animals, I pickled quite a bit of it. I also fried some of it just to see if Rand would eat it. I like it but it takes some people a little bit of a push to even try it. First you mix together some cornmeal, flour, salt, and pepper. Then get your oil heated to 350 degrees. Then dredge your cubed watermelon rind (minus the outer skin) in the flour mixture. Drop it in the oil and fry it until it is golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Stir gently and then fry it a little more, about four minutes. Drain well and then you can season with salt and pepper if you want to. It's meant to be eaten while still warm.

Rand ate it. I dared him and he did and then I had to fight for my share, especially after Mr. Henderson came by with Mitch. Of course Rand had to dare them to try it and then it was a race to see who could eat their share the fastest. After they left Rand told me Mitch said that Mr. Henderson has really had Cassie on a tight leash. She threw a fit when he said she couldn't come out on patrol with them and he said it looked like Mr. Henderson had come close to slapping her. He's told everyone that Cassie isn't to have a horse until further notice and she has also been assigned to all the work details that she didn't have to do before which is causing her to pitch fits. All I could think is that you reap what you sow but I managed to keep my mouth shut for once.

While everyone was having fun with the watermelon rinds I was making a mess with the watermelon flesh. I made watermelon jelly, watermelon preserves, watermelon jam, and I have some slices of watermelon drying. The last has me a little leery but Momma's recipe card says that after it is dry it is a bit like candy. We'll have to wait and see.

The other thing that started coming in today were the persimmons. I canned a bunch of pints of persimmon pulp. I also made some persimmon jelly and persimmon butter. The persimmon butter seemed to take forever but that is probably because I was watching it and wanting it to go faster since it was the last thing I was making before I started dinner.

For dinner I fixed an arugula and watermelon salad, and followed that up with a stroganoff I made with egg noodles, canned cream of mushroom soup (not much of that left), and powdered sour cream from the food storage stuff. And then some fried cheese!

Good thing I re-read the recipe for White Cheese; it only requires a quarter cup of vinegar and not a whole cup like I thought. That's even better. I still don't know what I'm going to do to replace my white vinegar when it is all used up because it is distilled. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

First you take a gallon of milk and heat it to 185 degrees. Take it off the heat and add the vinegar, stir for just a moment to incorporate it, and then leave it alone for ten minutes. After that you pour the resulting mess into a cheesecloth line colander to let the liquid drain off. I saved the liquid and gave it to the chickens who had a hay day with it but next time I think I'm going to try and make the ricotta with it.

I lifted the corners of the cheesecloth and pinched them together and then used a heavy duty clip to hang the goo-filled cheesecloth bag on a hook above a bowl for a little over two hours to catch the remaining drips. And at the end of that time … vavooom! … Houston we have cheese. I stuck the cheese in the cooler to firm up a little bit and when I was ready I sliced it thick, breaded it, and fried it. Rand said it was as good as going to the fair. There is still some cheese left so tomorrow I'm going to try using the broiler in the princess for the first time. I'll slice the tomatoes thick, top them with a slice of cheese, and then broil them until the cheese is melted and brown. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

 **November 4** **th** – Getting up early bites. I know it is necessary but I'm so tired. Right after I put my journal away last night … I had to make more ink today … reports of a battle in the Gulf of Mexico came over the radio. It was close enough to land that it could be seen at night and there were several different operators verifying what they saw. No news from the government admitting that the incident occurred and the operators from last night have been silent today, perhaps keeping their heads down … I hope it is nothing more sinister than that.

Paul came by today and said that he and Sadie – this is the name of the girl he has been attracted to – will be getting married this Sunday. Her mother died during the third wave of the pandemic and her father just up and disappeared day before yesterday. He's done it before but never under the circumstances that Sadie and her little sister were in. Paul has asked if he could trade for some milk every few days somehow until they can work out a trade with Mr. Henderson … they are trading a large field of hay for a cow. I'll leave that up to Rand, there are projects around here that he could use a couple of extra hands to finish up, setting the poles for the pole barn comes to mind.

Brought in a bunch of dried beans today. The shoe peg corn also started coming in today. I canned a bunch of it. I like it now that I've tasted it. I better like it after all that work we put into it. For dinner I made a corn casserole, buttermilk cornbread, and broiled tomatoes. I wish Momma and Daddy could see me now. I wish any of my friends from school could see me now, boy would they be surprised.

Church tomorrow and there is going to be a full dinner. I talked to Rand and we're going to bring cheese and corn casserole, a big pot of greens, a couple pans of cornbread and some homemade butter all of which is sitting down in the kitchen all wrapped up and ready to go first thing in the morning. I won't ever forget the gift of seeds that Momma O and Mrs. DeLois gave us for a wedding present so I made pillow cases for Paul and Sadie and we are also going to give them a large bag full of different dried fruits. We want to cultivate friendships as much as we cultivate Sparkleberry Ranch. After all, you never know what could be coming down the road these days.


	58. Chapter 57

Chapter 57

 **November 5** **th** – Paul and Sadie had a pretty wedding. It was chilly first thing in the morning, woke up and it was only in the 50s, but by the afternoon it was seventy-six degrees. From the sound of things I'm not the only one with a cough that won't go away. Rand has said that we should plan on sleeping downstairs from here on out. Weather like this is what they call pneumonia weather. Cool to cold at night and then warm to hot during the day. It starts with a cold, sinus drop makes your throat sore, then you start coughing, and then the yuck hits your stomach or your lungs. I'm sloshing around tonight have drunk enough peppermint tea to gag Santa. But at least I'm not hacking like I was this afternoon.

Sadie's little sister was really cute too all dressed up in a made over princess costume. You could see she was just dying to role her eyes every time someone mentioned she looked just "adorable and doll-like." I don't think at twelve I would have appreciated being called cute or doll-like either but she stayed pretty good natured about it until the boys really started pushing her buttons. Sadie's little sister's name is Hannah and I don't know who is thrilled with whom more … Hannah or Momma O. Sadie has done her best under bad circumstances but they'll both be much better off going to live with Paul.

There is some sorrow tinged with the happiness of the wedding through. You can just tell that Paul's brother isn't doing well at all. No one honestly expects him to survive the winter – he is prone to lung congestion and infections – and with no antibiotics or advanced treatment around it is highly doubtful that he'll survive his next bad turn.

We got to the park while the sky still had that rosy, early morning glow to it. Pastor Ken was already there as were all of Paul's family. Rand asked me to hold the wagon reins while he jumped down to run over and help Paul and the other men get Paul's brother and wheelchair on the ground safely. The food we had brought was boxed up but hidden under some hay and out of sight.

Rand was wiping his hands when he looked up and his eyes widened at something over my shoulder. I turned quickly and then released the brake and flicked the reins as I'd seen Rand do so many times and the mules pulled forward a little harder than I had expected, nearly pulling me off the wagon seat. Luckily Rand was there before I could lose control of the animals but the ruckus drew attention to the fact from everyone else that other people were starting to arrive and some of them were looking decidedly nosey.

What Rand had seen and why I had responded the way I did was because a woman was looking in the back of the wagon. They couldn't see anything but it still bothered me. It always embarrassed me when kids I went to school with would gawk inside other people's cars at school. "Oooh, leather seats. Outrageous sound system. Ew, there's like a jock strap in the back seat. Can you believe someone actually still listens to that CD? I'd like to know how she affords those shoes … you know her father isn't around and her mom is a waitress at the 1999 Club." Stupid catty stuff, but it was like they just had to know other people's business. Looking back I can't believe our school didn't implode with all the methane from the gasbags that went there. Those types of people would do the same thing to your hall locker or the gym lockers. You learned to keep everything in gym bags or to carry it around in your backpack just to keep people out of your business.

And now, grown people were doing it. But the woman did look hungry. When she asked if we had anything we needed help I said the first thing that came to my head, "All taken care of but thanks." It wasn't exactly a lie but it sort of was and Rand was standing right there and it made me awful uncomfortable. He got up in the wagon seat and moved the wagon between Pastor Ken's buggy and Paul's big horse-drawn hack he rescued from the local railroad museum. Before he got down he kissed me on the temple and said, "Easy Honey, it's OK. You handled it as well as I could have. Trust is something you earn these days. You don't go snooping in other people's stuff like that."

I still hate lying and there is no way to work it around to make it right but at least Rand understood why I said what I did. About that time Mr. Henderson showed up and he had his own way of hiding the obvious.

"Yo, Joiner … some of you other fellas … come lend us a hand here. Had a dog pack sneak past the sentry and try to take down a heifer. We killed the dogs but we had to put down the heifer. Figured it was a shame to waste what looks providential … help us get her finished up and we'll start grilling in short order."

They had more than enough hands helping … Sunday best and all … which gave me a chance to slip down from the wagon and quietly move what we brought to the tables. That same woman was staring at me and giving me the evil eye when I carried the basket that had the cornbread, cheese, and butter in it over to older ladies who were in charge of the buffet table.

"I know who you are. You're that girl that goes around killing people."

"Excuse me?"

"Word gets around. You kill people or you get people killed … you figured out which it is yet? Either way it ain't healthy to be around you. Sooner or later your man is gonna find that out."

With that she turned around and left. I have to say it made me sick to my stomach. No one with any sense wants to have that kind of reputation. Who wants to be known as a killer?

Pastor Ken made me jump when he came up behind me, "Don't listen to her. She's bitter. She's from over in Mayo. Her husband left her years ago and she had five boys to raise on her own. The oldest turned out all right. Last I heard he was still alive and working in Orlando in EPCOT's hydroponics farm. The youngest boy isn't too bad either and went to go live with his brother in some kind of apprentice program … free labor for training. But the middle three were more trouble than even their dad was. All three of them joined the roving gangs. Her second oldest was killed back on that raid at the Food Depot. The next to youngest boy lost his leg from the knee down and three fingers on one of his hands from the same battle. The middle boy is probably the meanest of the lot but he's slow from pickling his brain with homemade hooch from an early age; he's all fists but no intellect if you know what I mean."

Dumb and dumber might not be a threat right now, but that doesn't mean that they won't be a threat down the road if things continue to shake out like they are doing. I filed the information and then talked to Rand about it tonight. I also asked him to watch his back. I'll never forgive myself if something happens to him because someone is out for revenge over something I did. He promised but … it is awful hard not to sit around worrying.

At least I don't have to worry anyone noticed all the food we brought. Mr. Henderson's surprise eclipsed everything. I've begun to think that maybe that was the plan. After the service and as people began to load up on beef and other stuff from the buffet, I kept hearing Henderson and his men talk up how they've doubled the guards and how this was a one off event and how nothing (or no one if you were reading between the lines) was going to get to the ranch or animals any more. They sure as heck impressed some people with all the guns they were carrying around.

I think Cassie and Julia are on the outs with one another. They are polite but I could tell that Julia made a point of Cassie seeing her walk … well, waddle considering how big she is now … over to me and ask me how to crochet an edge on a little bonnet that she was making. The thread she had was pastel green, yellow, and white and it made me think about how people weren't exactly going to be able to plan for exactly what flavor of baby they were going to get any more.

I showed her how to put a real simple scallop edge on the bonnet. She was telling me thank you and then started crying. I didn't know what I had done and she kept saying that I hadn't done anything that she just couldn't seem to help it. She got herself under control, thanked me again, and then waddled off. I think she is scared. She was holding onto her belly like she could protect it or something. I guess if I was going to have a baby and two-thirds of the stories I'd heard hadn't exactly ended "happily ever after" I wouldn't be feeling real confident either. I keep seeing bits and pieces of a girl that I'd like to be friends with, that I could understand why Rand would have liked her … maybe, in some weird way, we can be friends at some point. I mean if Ron Harbinger, with all the stuff he's gotten up to in his life, can change then surely a girl like Julia can too.

The fellowship went longer than Rand and I had expected it to. We needed to get home and tend to the animals and try and get some rest before this coming week of work. We daren't leave the animals out while we are both gone but it wasn't fair to leave them locked up in the barn too long either. We said our goodbyes and then tucked the gift of dried fruit in with the other gifts the couple had received and packed up to head home.

We had the wagon on US90 when we heard a buggy coming up behind us fast, not racing but catching up. Mitch Peters pulled up beside us with Cassie on the seat beside him. You could tell Mitch already leaned heavy in the direction of I-wish-I-was-any-place-else-but-here. He desperately tried to start up a conversation with Rand but Cassie was complaining too loud.

"I don't see why I had to leave the party. It was just getting good. There was going to be music and … "

"You're grandfather told me to take you home so you could help get dinner ready for the men who didn't get to go to the services or fellowship. He won't be staying much longer himself, only until they get the last of the meat divided up between the families that are the most in need."

"Why do I have to … "

"Because your grandfather said so."

"I think he is getting senile or something. He's never treated me this way before. I haven't done anything to .. "

And then my mouth took over. I leaned around Mitch and said, "You're right, you haven't done anything. In fact, you are so good at not doing anything that your butt is going to get so wide you won't be able to fit on that wagon seat much longer. And you just keep right on not doing anything. That way Mitch won't have to be so careful not to hurt your grandfather's feelings when he opts out of trying to have any kind of relationship with you. Keep right on not doing anything and …"

"Now listen you little … you better watch your mouth. One of these days my grandfather isn't going to be around to protect you and … "

"That's right Tweedle Dee. Your grandfather isn't going to be around forever but his legacy will be. His legacy includes the ranch. It supports and is the livelihood of a lot of people these days, including some of your own family. So think … on … this …. Chica. You claim to know your grandfather so well. So, do you t really think your grandfather is going to take the risk of leaving that ranch to anyone that isn't completely capable of taking care of it and taking care of the people that have been under his care? Do you fit that description? Without your grandfather you … are … nobody. You are nobody because you don't do anything. Until you learn to do something with your time besides moan and groan and complain that your life isn't as easy as it was before you are going to stay a nobody. Get over yourself, everyone else already has … even your grandfather."

Rand and Mitch cringed like they were waiting for a nuclear explosion.

Cassie, tearing up said, "You can't talk to me that way."

"Uh … newsflash … I just did. Didn't see anyone or anything stopping me. Did you?"

Then her bottom lip started to quiver. "Rand, how could you … you pick this … this … "

"Forget it Cass. You aren't capable of understanding. But for the record it goes like this: I love her, she loves me, we'd both die for each other, we never lie to each other. And we both work as hard as we can so the other person doesn't have to carry any more of a load than is necessary."

"I … I … "

That's when Mitch stepped in and sighed, "He's right Cass. And so is she. You just either can't or won't see what is right in front of your face. Your grandfather isn't a young man. The way things are today any of us could be gone before nightfall today but your grandfather is under a lot of stress doing his best to take care of his people … and you aren't making it any easier on him. You cause problems with the workmen and their families. You're thoughtless, rude, and spoiled rotten. You treat Tia Cia like she is nobody when without her your grandfather wouldn't be the man he is. You know they could have already been married and maybe have given you a young aunt or uncle to grow up with but it is too late for that now. But I don't think your grandfather plans on waiting any longer for you to grow up Cass. I think he and Tia Cia are going to get married sooner rather than later with or without your approval. And I'm just about done waiting on you to grow up too. I've waited this long for your grandfather's sake. But I'm to the point where I'm thinking that no matter what kind of hope their might have been to begin with, there isn't much left now. You don't have too many choices left. Either straighten up and get serious about contributing to the welfare of the ranch and its people or … or be prepared for the consequences. You know your grandfather won't ever turn you out but you are using up even his patience at this point."

Uh huh. Mitch flicked his reins and the last I saw of them was Mitch's sharp and forbidding profile staring straight ahead and Cassie sitting there looking at him with her mouth hanging open.

Rand and I were quiet the rest of the way home. I couldn't help but think I had stepped in it again. Rand pulled around the blind and up to the barn.

"Rand, I'm … I know … oh boy … I know my mouth got ahead of my brain again."

"Huh?"

"With Cassie … I'll apologize and … "

"Oh no you won't! Now looka here, did I make you think that I was mad at you?"

"That's not what I meant, I meant that … "

"Yeah, I know what you mean Babe but you need to stop being willing to always be the one that apologizes. Besides, sometimes things need to be … aired out. Maybe someone else would have said it different but the plain fact is that no one else has."

"Rand I don't want to cause problems … I … I … I'm afraid one of these days I'm really gonna turn into an embarrassment for you."

"Never!"

"Never say never. I can be … "

" … Exactly what I need and never had the sense to pray for. Look Babe, what you said needed saying. Cassie needed to hear the bald truth. What she does with it is up to her. But from here on out she can't say nobody explained it to her. And there are witnesses so she can't lie about it, not even to herself."

"But … "

"No buts, I meant it. It gave Mitch the … opening or push or courage maybe … to lay it out for her; to give her one last chance and to tell her its her last chance or he's gonna move on."

"Are you sure? Should I say something to Mitch? I never meant to put him in a bad spot."

"What is there to say? I've known Mitch a long, long time. Chase wasn't the only one that Mitch used to drag out of trouble. Mitch … he's not … Look, Mitch and Cassie can work out if Cassie will just give up a lot of those stupid ideas she's gotten from romance books. Most guys aren't like that. Mitch is just a regular guy … feed him, water him, remember to pat him fairly often and he's good to go. He hates drama … those types of women were more his dad's style."

"But Cassie acts like such a drama queen."

"Yeah … acts like a drama queen. She's spoiled that's a fact. But she's also a decent person … or can be. She used to be real good with the little kids at church. Mitch likes little kids too. He says they don't get rotten until they turn into middle schoolers. And she … well, as far as I know anyway … was never the … uh … promiscuous type. She dated a few guys steady in school but when she wouldn't put out they moved on."

"Well I don't know her that well. I'll take your word on it. As long as you don't think I've caused more problems."

"Babe, the problems were already there. All you did was shine some light on them. Now … I'm tired of talking about that spoiled brat, the ball is in her court. She can get over herself or not. We've got enough problems of our own to spend time working on and I don't see anybody jumping up and down trying to help us. Right now I'm going to finish up Bud and Lou and let the rest of the animals out for a couple of hours before it gets dark. After I finish with that why don't you meet me in the loft so we can … talk."

So after we "talked" we mapped out some of the things we want to do this coming week. We've got a full list as usual. One more cup of strong peppermint tea and then I'm off to bed.

 **November 8** **th** – Been too tired and snuffly to write at night, all I've wanted to do is climb in bed and curl up and hope I can sleep for a couple of hours without waking up coughing. Rand says that we are moving downstairs this weekend, sooner if the weather turns cool again. I would have tried to argue him out of it if I'd had the energy. It got over 80 degrees today and I couldn't decide if I was hot or cold.

The reason Rand is trying to wait is because he is running wires trying to give a few solar operated LED lights. They are going to be small but he said they could give us the edge. The other thing he is in the middle of doing is putting in a small wood stove in the corner of the room. Rand is worried that the fireplace might not heat the room enough or would be a wasted heat at night. The little stove came out of one of the half destroyed trailers not too far from the house where the chickens came from. Rand found it when he'd gone over there looking for some heavy-duty bolts to put the pig house together with.

It's been more work to install than he expected. We actually had to build a fireproof box for the wood stove to stand on so that we could get the below the maximum ten feet of vertical venting height. We also had to joggle the location a little bit to work in the minimum distance from the walls, miss all my dad's stuff he did up in the attic area, make sure we had complete fire safety, and lots of other stuff.

I don't even bother asking where he learned all this stuff anymore; it's either "Uncle George," 4H, or Daddy's files. I wish he had a recipe for making this cold and cough go away.

I spent Monday and Tuesday picking watermelons and doing what I could to can some and eat as much as we could. What did I learn? In addition to all of the water in the watermelon they should come with a warning label that says "this watermelon contains an enormous amount of fiber and the results will be predictable." Rand and I laughed about it but it also seemed to make me even more tired … or at least that is what I thought it was.

This morning I felt a little more rested and decided to tackle the garden but got sidetracked when I realized that all my nantes carrots are ready to harvest. I had the second batch going in the canner and went out to the garden to get the next bunch to clean and chop when … poof … I don't remember what happen. I came to when I felt cold a cold rag being put on the back of my neck. I inhaled real sharp and then started coughing so hard I started seeing spots. With Rand banging on my back I finally coughed up a wad of that gross crud that gets stuck in the back of your throat when you are sick. I didn't care if it was lady like or not, I spit that stuff out before it made me gag.

"That's it, you're going to bed."

"I can't. My carrots!"

"I'll take care of the carrots. How long have they been on?"

"I don't know … the timer … is the timer going?"

"Yeah and it's time for the jars to come off the heat. Sit here and don't you dare move," he said as he propped me in one of the lawn chairs.

After he moved the carrots off of the heat he helped me into the bathroom and I had to suffer through a blasted cold shower and then when I was shaking so bad I couldn't hear myself think over my teeth chattering he carried me upstairs and basically restricted me to bed and this is where I've been every since.

I can't get sick. There is too much to do. Tomorrow a bunch of the popcorn is going to be dry enough to bring in and I can't just leave it out there; the squirrels and 'coons have already tried their darnedest to take their share and ours too. The delicate squash are going to be ready to pick too if we don't get any rain overnight. By Friday the pumpkins and cabbage will need to be picked and processed. And Saturday is laundry day again.

 **November 9** **th** – This sucks. I can barely breathe. I tried to get out of bed and nearly fell down the stairs during a coughing fit. Rand won't help me down the stairs. I drug myself over to the dormer window and watched him take the shocks of popcorn into the barn. He looked up and caught me and his face and finger pointing made me understand I had better get back in bed real quick. Well, it wasn't quick, but it was faster than he could get up the stairs.

"Girl, I'm gonna staple you into that bed. I'm not kidding Kiri. I can't get my work done if I have to worry about you not staying in bed where you belong."

So I did and here I am, slowly dying a painful death as my brain rots away from boredom.

 **November 10** **th** – Shaken, not stirred. That's how my brain feels.

 **November 12** **th** – Feeling a little better but I'm awful embarrassed. Tia Cia brought horehound tea to help get rid of the crud in my chest. She also had Cassie with her this morning … that's the embarrassing part. I hate for people to see me like this.

 **November 13** **th** – I'm still coughing a little but at least I can breathe again. I am so stiff and sore it feels like I've been biking forever, especially my neck and back. Rand helped me take a shower this morning but by the time I was finished he had to lift me out of the tub and help me dress. I feel like such a baby.

But even with that, between the horehound tea and that echinacea and astragalus tablets that Tia Cia had me taking I'm feeling a lot better than I was. Pastor Ken has been by almost every day. He diagnosed me as having acute bronchitis.

I can just vaguely recall Rand carrying me down the dormer stairs and laying me in the master bedroom bed and promising me that he wouldn't be gone any longer than necessary. I found out later that he had ridden Hatchet to the end of our road and over to Momma O's and left word that he needed Pastor Ken as soon as he could. Momma O had Paul ride over to the Henderson Ranch … Pastor Ken was treating a man that had lost a toe after it was crushed by a bull stepping on it … and Tia Cia insisted on coming with him and bringing her satchel of herbs.

The next thing I remember is Rand getting upset and the Pastor telling him, "Rand, it happens. She's young and strong and if we can get that stuff broken up she should be all right."

"If? Should?"

"Rand … I wish I could make guarantees but I'd be lying if I did. We just don't have any more antibiotics in the area. We went through all of the fish antibiotics we scavenged from the feed store during the last wave of the pandemic."

I remember hearing Tia Cia's calming voice telling the two of them to take it outside if they were going to get "muy macho." I wanted to laugh and tell Rand not to worry so much but I went back to sleep instead.

It feels like I've been living in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Not asleep but not awake either. Time didn't feel like it was running the right way either. It wasn't until this morning that I had the energy to even cry about all the waste in the garden.

"Hey … hey, hey, hey … don't Babe. Nothing has gone to waste. Come on now, it's not like you to cry."

I couldn't help it, "You're just saying that. I know … " and I just kept crying.

"No I'm not. The Popcorn is in the barn. I sliced and put a bunch of the carrots in the dehydrators and the rest of them are just fine where they are at until you can get to them. The winter squash and pumpkins are sitting on the counter in the summer kitchen and Tia Cia is coming by today to process some of them. The cabbage can stand to wait a couple of more days too. And tomorrow Charlene and Mick are coming. Laurabeth and Alicia wanted to come as well but Pastor Ken nixed that since they're pregnant and just got over colds too. This weather has everyone a little loopy. Now dry those eyes and get some rest."

Of course I couldn't rest, not really. And when Tia Cia showed up with Cassie I could have just died. I'd already seen what I looked like in the mirror. But I can't recall her making fun or snickering or saying something nasty at all, not even when we were alone in the room together. She gave me some strange looks but that is about it.

I'm out of energy again. This is so stupid. Tomorrow come heck or high water I am getting up.


	59. Chapter 58

Chapter 58

 **November 14** **th** – I felt like such a dope today. I needed to tell Charlene and Mick what to do but I really hated it. I tried to get up and do things too but every time I would try I would either get the shakes or start coughing like I was gonna hack up a lung.

Mick is a little stinker. Charlene started laughing when he said, "How come? Laurabeth and Alicia sure don't have a problem bossing us around and they ain't even as nice about it as you are!"

It was plain, even to me, that I needed their help if anything was going to get done. Tia Cia had canned a load of pumpkin and a load of the Delicata squash for me but that barely scratched the surface of what I needed to do. I feel so far behind.

First thing we got the Delicata squared away since it had been sitting out the longest. It is a winter squash and I didn't even know that it was called "Delicata" until Momma O told me. Growing up we always just called it sweet potato squash and used it the same way since that is what it kind of tastes like. Memaw made a pie out of the puree that you couldn't tell whether it was made out of real sweet potatoes or from the squash.

First we peeled and cubed the squash and then boiled them for two minutes. Then you take the cubes out with a slotted spoon and put them into the prepared jars. Take the water you boiled the squash in and pour it over the cubes leaving about an inch of headspace, wipe the jar rims, and process.

After the Delicata squash it was time to do something with the pumpkins that were beginning to look a little over ripe, at least in my opinion. Once the pumpkins were cooked we took quite a bit of it and just cubed it and canned it the same way we did the squash but another good sized batch of the cooked pumpkin we pureed and turned into pumpkin butter. For each batch of pumpkin butter you take three cups of cooked, mashed pumpkin pulp and you add to that two cups of sugar, one half teaspoon of ground cinnamon and one half teaspoon of ground cloves and one half teaspoon of lemon juice (which I'm getting very short of if truth be told). From there you cook it just like apple butter and can it the same way as well.

While the pumpkin butter cooked down we also got a lot of carroty stuff going; plain or spiced carrot jam, carrot marmalade, carrot relish, dilled carrots, pickled carrots, and spiced carrots. Tomorrow I have to think about cabbage, broccoli, onion, and Hickory King corn. That should make me feel nice and rejuvenated. Not.

I did manage to find the oomph to make biscuits and despite the fact that it is beginning to cool down the summer kitchen got so toasty that we left the doors and windows open. With the princess running full steam and the pot belly outside too, we made pretty good use of the daylight hours but it was also having one of the firepits up and running that made the difference. Running four canners was a lot to keep up with but at least we cleared all of the produce on the counter top.

After we got the last batch of pumpkin butter going we still had a decent sized glop of pumpkin puree left. The longer I looked at that little pile of pumpkin the bigger my craving got for a pumpkin latte. I hadn't had one in a long time. They were a special we made at the diner and it is just about the only way I will drink coffee. Aunt Wilma never did understand why I could never drink coffee, she was a coffee snob and my Dad could drink a pot or two of coffee a day by himself, my grandmothers kept pots of coffee on all day … I just never developed the taste for it. Instead I enjoy tea, all sorts of teas from herbal to earl grey. I used to try the nastiest tasting stuff just to freak Aunt Wilma out. I suppose you have to get your kicks where you can.

As for the Pumpkin Lattes though, totally yum. The trick was going to figure out how to make a "crock pot" because that is the only way I know how to do it. Well, I took an old stone crock and put it in the warming pan of the princess. I don't think it is exactly the same but it worked for what I needed. For two really big mug's worth you take three quarters cup of real strong coffee and whisk in two cups of milk, two tablespoons of pumpkin puree, two tablespoons of sugar, two tablespoons of vanilla (yeah, that much), and a half teaspoon of pumpkin spice and you let this cook crockpot-style for two hours.

Maybe I should watch the rich stuff in the future because Mick was pinging off the walls by the time Uncle George came to pick them up. When he asked, "What in the Sam Hill has that boy been into?" I gave him his own mug of latte and he didn't ask again.

"Well, glad to see you're doing better but that cough still sounds nasty. Rand … son … might have some weeding goslings for you in a couple of days. Bertha Ferguson lost one of her geese and has too many eggs for her flock as it is. She says if you'll promise to come help to mow their back forty she'll give you some of them."

I was getting shaky and cranky and all I could think of was, "Great, more responsibilities for me to make time for." Rand looked at me and said, "It's OK Babe … the goslings will pull their weight literally by helping to weed in the garden. That's if they are the right kind of geese."

"They'll do the job all right though they'd be more use if they were spring hatchlings. They're a White Chinese breed. Kiri girl, you should see a bunch of goslings mow through any kind of broadleaf vegetable patch. Now, I wouldn't let 'em in the corn until the corn was up quite a bit but they do a fine job on just about anything else, including strawberries which I see you've got yourself a fine patch of."

Which was Uncle George's way of saying I needed to weed the strawberries since they were looking sloppy. Nice man, but some of the ways he tries to give advice make me want to grind my teeth on bad days. It's not like I didn't feel bad enough about all the grass growing in the tower already.

After Uncle George left with Charlene and Mick about all I had energy to do was make dinner. Rand offered but he's no more rested than I am and besides, I make less mess. And speaking of cleaning up, Charlene gave me an idea for doing something with all of those blasted acorns that started raining down last month. Charlene was talking about how everyone is beginning to run out of both flour and cornmeal unless they've figured out how to grind their animal feed. Then she said that Alicia was experimenting making other types of flour … millet, potato, sweet potato, rice flour … and acorn flour.

I know I've got the directions for this someplace in Momma's files because I've seen it. I would have started it today but frankly after Charlene and Mick left I was too tired. I'm sitting here at the little secretary table that Rand set up for me in the bedroom. He wants me to have a warm place to write as the weather becomes cooler; I'm far enough away from the stove that I won't roast but close enough that I'm not going to have cold feet either. Now I just need to find the energy to climb into bed. I need to ask Rand what he did with the step stool I kept tucked under the bed; when I say climb into the bed that's exactly what I mean.

Hopefully Rand won't fall asleep up in the dormer room listening to the radio. I don't know if I even have the energy to go get him up if he does.

 **November 15** **th** – Feeling a little better today. Didn't cough as much although I'm still snuffly. I'm sorry, using a bandana to blow your nose in just feels gross, having to wash the bandanas is even worse. I suppose I could have used some of the toilet paper we have left, but as a girl I feel like I already use more than my fair share of it.

No help today and boy do I feel it. Brendon came over early to tell us Janet had another really bad spell last night. The spells are getting further apart, which is a good thing, but the spells themselves aren't getting any easier on her. From the sound of things she is very congested still this morning even though the fever broke. Ron's aunt is over doing some kind of therapy on her … postural something or other … where she is put in different positions and she is basically kind of whacked on the back with a cupped hand in specific locations. Brendon said that it helps knock the mucus loose so that she can clear it out.

And apparently, Rand and I aren't the only ones that are questioning Uncle George's insistence on keeping Janet still and quiet all the time. Ron's aunt … I can't keep calling her that but the idea of calling that starched up woman Aunt Buzzy like Ron does gives me the shivers … has told Uncle George that Janet is in desperate need of exercise. She needs to increase her lung capacity, not just put up with the diminished capacity she has right now. As soon as … um … Aunt Buzzy (ew, shiver) … helps get Janet through this latest crisis she has said that Janet is going to start on a stationary bicycle and if Uncle George doesn't like it that is just too bad. Brendon said his dad looked like a trout out of water with his mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out. And then he just gave in.

"At least Dad had the sense to get out of Ol' Buzzard's way … "

"Brendon!"

"Aw come on Rand, you used to call her that yourself. That woman is … is … I don't know what she is but she is definitely something. You should see how she manages Mrs. Winston. I don't know what Mr. Winston would have done if Buzzy hadn't been willing to step up. Rumor has it she did it because she and Mr. Winston used to have a … thing for each other before Mrs. Winston caught his eye and won't that give you nightmares if you think about it too much."

Brendon may be more mature than he used to be but I can guarantee you that if his mouth and mine got into a contest I wouldn't be able to say for sure that I would come out the winner. Brendon finally left after doing everything he could to wind Rand up.

No matter how much I tried I could only run three canners today and I was pushing it to do that. I almost let the cornbread burn but caught it just in time; it was dark brown but still edible.

Rand is ragged around the edges too. I can tell he has lost weight again and he hasn't shaved in quite a while. Not that I mind, the grungy look is kind of hot looking on him right now though I can tell now that he isn't trying to do everything himself he is beginning to remember that he said having a beard itches. I caught him scratching under his chin several times today.

A lot of the milk had to be given to the animals. He saved all the cream he could but the skimmed milk gave the pigs and chickens a little change up in their diet. Mick and Charlene drank their fill yesterday even helped me to churn the cream that had been saved. Luckily neither one asked how Rand has been saving the cream. Charlene isn't all that much young that I am but she has led the petted and protected life I would have if my dad had lived. It's made her … soft, less observant I guess you would call it. That was good for us yesterday but might not be good for Charlene in the long run.

Rand put off any major projects today and mostly stayed in or around the house. He neatened and prettied up around the wood stove in the bedroom. He also helped me shuck and clean the popcorn so we could put bags of the kernels in the freezer for a couple of days. From there we'll dry it back out and store it in some of the Tupperware containers I've saved. He spent most of his time on small projects like sharpening his tools and working out all of the salvage material he is going to need for a couple of different projects he has in mind. That mean he was on hand to help me move the canners when I started running out of oomph right after lunch.

Rand tried to get me to lie down when he caught wind of how I was feeling but I was feeling too far behind and in a rush. I really wish I could have but I'll rest went all of the crops are in. When I told Rand that he snorted and said, "No you won't. You'll find something else that you think needs doing, but you'll do me the favor today by not canning anymore before dinner. OK?"

Rand doesn't really pull the I-am-the-man card very often but it was pretty clear that's what he was doing right then for all he said it like I'd be doing him a favor. I think maybe I scared him when I got sick.

The other night, before I had even gotten well enough to get out of bed, he started talking about us need to have rules and such. He went on to talk about how I was overbooking myself and trying to do too much. Rand is the only guy that I've ever been with and if I didn't trust him … some part of me already loving him … I would never have married him and given him any kind of authority in my life. But, even with Rand I have "authority issues." With anyone else I would have probably ignored them and done what I wanted anyway, but I like the peace I share with Rand and have learned to think before I act when it comes to him.

"You're right," I told him after thinking it over. "This way I won't have to worry about you so much either."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, this will be really great. You've lost too much weight and I get worried at the end of the day when you are so tired. Now that you'll be quitting work so much earlier … "

"Now wait. I didn't mean … "

"And … "

"Well, this is all hypothetical of course. We need to be thinking about having rules. After I get through these next few projects we should sit down and talk about this."

Whew. Averted that one. I really don't have a problem if Rand wants "rules," I just want them to apply to both of us.

Today we cut the dry stalks of the Hickory King corn and the reason we had to cut them is because they were too tall for me to reach. The stalks all reached between eight and twelve feet tall and every one of them had two ears which was pretty doggone good. Rand and I measured it out; each dried ear yields a half pound of corn kernels so each corn plant is giving us roughly a pound of dried kernels. The shucked ears are sitting in bushel baskets in the summer kitchen waiting for me to have time at night to rub the kernels off and that most definitely requires gloves.

I put most of the broccoli to dry but I made broccoli and cheese today and I have a few late bunches that I'll use as they mature. The onions were pretty easy to bring in and what I did with them was to take old pantyhose … and yes, they are old but clean hose … and I dropped an onion all the way down to the toe of one leg and then tied a knot. Then I dropped another onion down to the knot and then tied another knot above that onion. I kept doing that until both the legs of the pantyhose were filled. It looked like a bizarre garland and I have two pair of pantyhose hanging like this in the pantry. The other onions I am going to dry or can tomorrow.

I know it doesn't seem like I did much today. I didn't even get the bed curtains cut out that I meant to start on. I got some stuff done but I am very tired and tomorrow is cleaning day so I'm going to go to bed and curl up next to Rand. I have found a good way to stop him from snoring in the middle of the night. If he wakes me up really going at it hard I sneak my cold feet up under the back of his knees.

I need to write the funny down before I forget. Last night Rand was snoring so bad that not even Woofer could stand it. He came over to my side of the bed and made a doggy noise and I told him it wasn't my fault, to take it up with Rand … so it did. Woofer went over to Rand's side of the bed and stuck his cold nose right in Rand's ear. Oh … my … goodness. You would have thought someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on him. I laughed until I started coughing again. Then we got into a bit of a pillow fight. Then we made up.

Still … I hope Rand doesn't snore so much tonight. I can always judge how tired he is by how bad he snores. My goal is one day not have him snoring at all.

 **November 16** **th** – I am so tired. I think I over did it too because I'm coughing again. It was probably the ammonia I was using to clean with; not smart. But, I don't have all that many options for cleaning lately and I mostly definitely needed to give the house a thorough cleaning today. The house feels truly clean for the first time in a couple of weeks. I did floors, walls, and bedding today.

Or maybe I'm coughing from the wet feet I got while doing the sheets and bedding. I did get kind of cold. Rand says he might have an idea, he isn't sure. Every day he finds something new to think about in Daddy's files. There were these directions for building a passive solar hot water system. I don't know how well it will work in the cool weather but it is definitely something he is figuring out how to mount on the roof. But what he was thinking is that he could also mount one on the roof of the barn. Then he could run the hot water pipe down the outside of the barn and into a lean to where he could set up a wash tub and wringer.

I really like this idea. One, it would keep the washing mess out of the house and I wouldn't have to spend time mopping up the inevitable drips that get on the floor. Two, it would save time by me not having to haul bucket after bucket of water or heat water to wash the grungiest stuff in. Three, it would save water because I could drain the wash water into a bucket and use it to water the orchard or whatever. Right now I'm letting the water go into the septic system. And, Rand said if he can find all the parts he plans on putting together an alcohol fuel distiller … basically that's a fancy name for a still … and if he can create alcohol fuel then he'll build me an agitating washing machine that will run off of a combustion engine. And this guy was getting his business degree!? He should have been going to school to be an engineer. I said that to him and he said, "No way! Too many rules back then on what you could and couldn't do. I small scale and like building stuff for us but that's about it Babe."

 **November 17** **th** – Sad day. Paul's brother passed away in the night. Pastor Ken said his internal organs just gave out this time. The family has decided not to have a big wake or home going service, not even a graveside service. As a matter of fact when Rand rode over there first thing this morning after finding out from Mitch he was just in time to dig the last two feet of the grave itself. There is a small graveyard that has been in the family for years in the back corner of their yard lot. Paul's dad says they don't know what they are going to do for a headstone so they'll just mark it with some limestone chunks like I did the place where Uncle Charlie is buried.

While Rand was over there I made up a large bowl of tangerine slaw. It's basically a sweet slaw. You take shredded cabbage and add Miracle Whip or mayonnaise, a little bit of sugar, some raisins, and drained canned Mandarin orange sections. I kept back some for Rand and I and then put the rest in a plastic container with a lid and was walking up the road when I met Rand coming back. Mitch was with him. They had come to get one of those chunks of limestone out of the eighty next door to our forty; none of the chunks at Momma O's was movable. Rand kissed my forehead and took the slaw back with him when he left in the wagon. When he came back I could tell he needed to talk.

"He was a big as a grown man but when we lifted him to put him in the ground … he weighed less than some kids I've picked up. He didn't starve to death but he his muscles were all atrophied and he must not have had any kind of bone density. Looking at him now it is a wonder he lived as long as he did. They were providing around the clock care for him. At least he lived long enough to be at Paul's wedding. Thank goodness for Sadie. She's giving Mrs. DeLois and Momma O something to focus on."

That wasn't the last of the sad news. Julia's mother escaped; she gnawed her restraints in two if you can believe that. She's in nothing but a nightgown … assuming she left it on … and they've been looking for her all day. Rand went to help when Hoss came by to tell us about it. Someone had brought their hunting and tracking dogs and they had her scent and followed it for almost five miles but lost it in a fresh skunk spray and they weren't able to pick it back up. The search was called off when it got dark, Rand didn't get home until almost nine o'clock and I was getting worried.

"The path she was taking doesn't make any sense. It looks like she may just be wandering. As many times as we had to go in circles it is a wonder we didn't trip over her. It looks like she might be heading out towards Ichetucknee. I have a hard time seeing her make it that far but if she does we might never find her if she falls in."

"Rand, I want to help look tomorrow."

"What?! You just got over being sick and … "

"Rand, I'm the last person to really care about how things look but … we don't need people thinking that either one of us is holding any kind of grudge against any of the Winstons. That's the kind of thing that can fester and maybe cause us problems down the road."

"I know, I've already thought of that … and gotten some comments from people today. That's why I've made sure and not gone off looking by myself. I don't want anyone to say anything other than I tried as much as everyone else."

"So … "

"Look, I understand what you are saying but you were bad sick. You're still coughing."

"Not as bad."

"OK, not as bad but still I don't like it. And Kiri, some of the people that are helping in the search … they aren't exactly the kind of people that … that … Look, I don't even know how to say this without sounding …" He mangled his hair and then continued, "Babe, I don't want you around some of those people. Some of them are strangers but some of them … they're people … they're people Chase and I used to hang out with when we were at our worst in highschool. Some of them still carry a grudge against me for turning my back on them."

"Well, you shouldn't be near them either!"

"It's different. I can't look weak. But if you come with me tomorrow I'm going to worry and if they see me worrying they'll know you are a weakness and they might try … "

"Rand Joiner, are you forgetting who you're talking to? I've spent the last few years of my life surviving in a house full of trouble teenage boys. I've … I've … Well, I've defended myself as necessary. I love you for wanting to protect me but don't forget that I can protect myself as well."

"I know … I just … look, let me think about it. Oh heck. Fine. But you are going armed – pistol and rifle – and I want you to carry that big screwdriver you're so fond of. And that kukri of your dad's too. The kukri will help you get through the underbrush and … and if you keep it in hand it will be good for self defense."

So I put together two packs, one for Rand and one for me; food, water, and a few other odds and ends. They aren't very big and there isn't much in them … we've actually stuck some stuff in our pants pockets or inside our jackets … we don't want to draw too much attention to what we have but trying to fit in isn't going to do us much good if we get hurt trying to hide in plain sight.


	60. Chapter 59

Chapter 59

 **November 19** **th** **/20** **th** – This has been a long two or three days. I think it is after midnight so technically I guess you could say we are into our third day.

Yesterday, day before yesterday depending on which clock you are looking at, Rand and I were up before the chickens. I didn't do more than heat water for breakfast – coffee for Rand's thermos and hot spiced tea for mine. I baked a thick and hearty cornbread last night that had bacon bits, cheese, and bits of dried apple in it and what we didn't eat for breakfast I sliced and added to our nosebag lunches. I was glad that I did too considering how things turned out.

We rode the mules. We were going to ride Hatchet and Dilly … I named the filly Daffodil but she seems to answer better when we call her Dilly … but Hatchet tried to get frisky the first day of searching and take Rand through a thick stand of blackberry canes. Hatchet scratched himself up and Rand decided that it is better to keep him away from other horses until he's healed. In hindsight I'm glad because even though Dilly is a sweet pea for a horse I needed Lou's protective stability and he minds me better too most of the time.

The morning was pretty eerie. Mist lay draped like a thick veil on and around everything. It wasn't cold but it was coolish and we wore our jackets; I could feel mine getting heavier as it picked up the damp in the air. The mist held back the morning until we reached the trading shack and when the sun finally found the sky the mist acted as a million tiny mirrors and it suddenly seemed far brighter than it should have been.

The whispering started as soon as we rode up and increased in volume as I dismounted and went over to Julia where she sat wrapped in a quilt on the wide veranda of the Shack.

"Julia, I'm so … to be honest I don't know quite what to say. I'm not here to cause problems. I just want to help. I want you to know … "

Julia gave a small, sad smile and said, "It's all right Kiri. I understand. And … and thank you."

"Has there been any word?"

"No … none."

Looking around I asked, "Should you be out here? It's a little damp."

"If you can get my daughter to go inside you'll have had more luck than the rest of us," Mr. Winston said as he stepped up to the railing.

"Daddy … you know I … "

Ron came over and interrupted what was obviously an overplayed argument. "We're going to start heading out. Sawyer has a map drawn. Any group that forms after these do will be sent to a different sector."

An older lady I didn't recognize came to sit with Julia and I went back to Rand who was visibly bristling. The guy he was facing might have been heavy at some point but he had lost a lot of weight and not in a healthy way. "Well, well. And what little girl do we have here?"

"The girl that is gonna turn you from a scrawny looking rooster to an even uglier hen if you don't back out of my personal space."

I'd caught Rand off guard and he barked out a big laugh at the look on the guy's face.

"My gawd Joiner. You done married a … a … I don't know what you done married. It's a cross between a porc-a-pine and a Chihuahua."

Before Rand could get angry again I looked at the guy, smiled my best stewardess smiles and said, "So long as you remember that we won't have any problems. Just don't forget that I can shoot a gun just about as well as I can shoot my mouth off."

We got back on the mules and left the guy … found out that used to call him Sasquatch but his given name is Arnold McPhee … standing there laughing.

"Babe, you are something else. I'm gonna be bald before I'm 25 if you keep doing things like that. But I wouldn't have credited it, you just got one of the guys on your side that I never expected to see happen. If Arnie likes you then hopefully he'll be able to talk some of the other guys around. Not too many run up against him." To be honest I could care less but if it makes Rand happy then whatever. The guy just seemed like a pompous blowhard to me; all wind, no substance.

I was the only female in the eight-person group we were in. There was Rand and I, Ron, Hoss, and four other guys that Rand wouldn't let get too close to me. Only one of those guys seemed to be more of a donkey's behind than our mules' hindquarters were related to – a guy they called Mercer – but he was easy enough to ignore. And I noticed as long as I ignored him everyone else seemed able to as well.

Eventually the guy shut up and we rode slowly in a side-by-side line from morning to noon. A short break for lunch and then we remounted and continued. A brief halt was called when a piece of torn material matching the description of Mrs. Winston's nightgown was found stuck in a devil's walking stick bush.

"Well Ron, what do you think son? Continue on? Send someone back with the info?"

"Hoss can you and Joe ride back and get folks to converge on this area? We'll keep heading this way until we hit the river. If we don't find her before then we'll wait there for the dogs."

Mercer tried to offer up his two cents on the subject but everyone pretty much did the opposite of what he suggested. What was irritating was how he always seemed to try and draw our group off course, saying he saw stuff that turned out to be a shadow or nonexistent at all.

There was another bigger strip of the same material caught on the barbed wire that marked the boundary of Ichetucknee State Park. All the men sighed and Mercer started running his mouth saying that there was just no way that "the old bat" could have climbed the fence and gotten into the park. I dismounted and pulled out my wire cutters. Ron looked at Rand and Rand just shrugged.

I'm sorry. I'm a doer. Sitting around waiting and wringing my hands doesn't do it for me. It was obvious that the fence had been stretched out a little. And there was another small fluttering string hung up in a cedar tree on the other side of the fence. I wondered what kind of evidence Mercer would need to admit the obvious. Ron led us though the gap I had created and the going quickly became much more difficult. A couple of the horses started to balk and eventually even Bud and Lou bogged down in the overgrowth.

Those of us with machetes dismounted and starting cutting a path. It didn't take long for me to start coughing. I was able to hide it for a while but eventually Rand noticed and came over and called for another break. It was when we stopped moving and stood quiet and still that we heard it.

There was a shriek and then some rough laughter by several men. The alert level in our group spiked. Weapons were quietly drawn and checked. We tied the animals off to a tree and waded through the vegetation heading in the direction we heard a second and then third shriek followed by a very audible moan and more cruel laughter.

Rand and the other men looked at me. There is a time to argue and a time to just shut up and be the little woman. I stepped off into some bushes and took up a rear guard type position. I saw Rand relax a little and give me a wink to let me know he appreciated what I was doing. The men then headed deeper into the very overgrown park, eventually disappearing from view. If things had been any less serious I might have been upset but I wasn't. I was however wound tight and listening for trouble which turned out to be a good thing.

Several feet to my left and behind me I heard, "Where'd them guys go?"

"Shut up Skeet. Fizz is checking their mounts and he told us to ambush 'em when they come back. How we gonna ambush 'em if they hear your mouth flapping?"

Skeet and his partner were so skanky that I found them by smell before I actually got a good look at them. Their BO was a combination of sour armpits, unwashed feet, and vomit-covered drunk. They reminded me of how the dumpster behind the diner smelled when the BYOB club at the other end of the strip center would sneak some of their garbage into ours.

For some reason their odor made me just as angry as their words. There was some of the cleanest open water in the area flowing within the park and here they were stinking up the place and not even noticing.

"I think they had a girl with 'em. How 'bout we hide out with her for a while?"

"Forget it. Fizz has already called dibs on her and you know DC will give him what he wants since he found that old hag for them to play with last night."

I prayed right there that Mrs. Winston's mind was too gone for her to understand what had likely been happening to her.

"Hey, where you think DC got those rigs full of stuff from? I … "

"Shut up man. DC don't like nobody askin' questions about his business. You want to keep breathing, you better stop talking. DC will use you for games next time."

"Sure man. It's cool. I just thought … you know … you been with 'em even longer than Fizz. You're smarter than Fizz too."

"Yeah … and don't you fergit it either. Fizz'll get his someday, someday soon and … "

I was shocked and nearly screamed when a hand suddenly appeared from behind the man that was talking and in the hand was a knife and the knife did what knives were designed to do.

"Geez Fizz. You didn't say you was gonna kill 'im."

"What did you think I was gonna do idiot? We'll blame it on those guys and no one will be the wiser. You mess this up and you'll follow … "

"Sure Fizz … sure. No problems here. I kept my mouth shut about everything else haven't I?!"

"Shut up you idiot. Let's set up here and we'll catch those guys on their way back. You do what I tell you to and I'll see you get a piece of the next one we find, maybe even let you go first."

My blood was boiling but it was a cold boil … felt like liquid ice was flowing through me. Everything got sharper and clearer. I could feel that "gone away" feeling coming on and this time I was saying hurry up. I was still trying to decide what I was going to do when the decision was taken out of my hands.

I could hear gunfire coming from the same direction that the shrieks had come from. Both men jumped, obviously they hadn't expected our men to fight. Fizz ordered, "Come on, we'll catch 'em in a crossfire."

I thought, "Oh no you won't." I was already braced and ready. I fully admit that I shot them both in the back without a second thought. It is what they had planned for Rand and the other men. It may not have been fair but at the moment I felt like I was at war … and I intended on our side winning.

Something told me that I needed to go check the animals to make sure they hadn't been moved. I ran back and could feel my chest starting to tighten up but I kept going. Sure enough our mounts weren't where we left them but it was easy enough to follow the trail through the bushes using the kukri and I found them tied off in a new location. I was debating whether to move them back or wait for the men when my braid was grabbed and used to swing me around into a fist that felt way too big.

"Next time you shoot darlin' make sure the guy isn't wearing Kevlar."

That's an affirmative. Fizz grabbed me but was still suffering the effects of my shots to his back and the wind that got knocked out of him. But a vest doesn't cover everything. It certainly didn't cover his legs which is what I started slashing at with the kukri once we'd started to tussle. I dropped with a rabbit punch to my kidney … why do the big jerks always like to hit the most painful spot in the most painful way possible? I tried to brace for the rest of the fight but that punch was the last real move that Fizz made. I guess I had raked the big artery in his leg during our fight and he was down and in a pool of his own blood staring at nothing by the time I got my breath back.

I was hurting all over but especially my back. I leaned against Lou trying to catch my bearings. Bless that mule, he was shaking but didn't move away from me and let me hold onto him without a whinny of complaint. I heard some men and thought it was Rand and the others but it wasn't. A couple of the guys in this group were definitely nothing I could handle. I stayed as quiet as I could but one of the horses got shook up from all the blood and noise and broke loose and went charging into the open. The guys started fighting over who was going to get the horse when the gunfire started up again and was coming closer.

Within a few minutes I didn't have a flaming clue what was going on, who was fighting whom, or which direction the bullets were coming from. Iooked for Rand in the fray but so no one that I recognized. When I heard automatic gunfire and a bullet grazed another one of the horses I didn't feel like I had any choice. I loosed the animals from our hiding spot and sent them as away from the fighting as I could figure out for them to go and then I took off too.

I didn't have time to worry though I know a part of me was thinking that Rand was going to be so upset about Bud and Lou. I didn't really know where I was heading either; all I knew was that it was away from the heavier and heavier gunfire. I panicked for a moment but then realized there was nothing I could do except do for myself at the moment; and I prayed Rand wouldn't do anything crazy looking for me. The gunfire was getting close again so I kept running.

Boy did I run. And run. And then fell when I tripped over a fallen signpost on an overgrown trail. It said Blue Hole Spring. I blinked rapidly a couple of times trying to get my brain to work on something besides the sounds of battle and discovered I could finally orient myself. I'd spent enough time holed up in that snack bar staring at the map on the wall behind the register and from those memories I concluded I was at the far north end of the park near the upper tube launch. That made sense; we'd come into the park near the old family campground at the north entrance but somehow I had wound up on the east side of the river instead of the west. I must have been running in circles part of the time.

I stopped, pulled myself together and knew I needed to head back north or I wouldn't be able to cross the river until I reached US27. The problem is that there was no going north. The fighting was heading my way again. I kept the river on my right so that I wouldn't turn in circles again. At Missions Spring I had to stop. I was getting the shakes and getting dehydrated. The day was getting later and cooler but that didn't mean that I wasn't sweating.

At this point I heard the big guns and engines approaching again; it was like a freaking war zone. Everything was noise and confusion. I prayed that Rand was all right as I knew he'd be praying for me. It seemed so huge, like the fighting had taken over the whole park but in truth the fighting was in a concentrated area that moved, I just happened to always be on the leading edge of it. If I had been able to get out far enough ahead and then tried to break away and to the east I could have let it pass me, but moving as slow as I was on foot I had a different reception of what I thought was happening.

I tried to break away at Mill Pond Spring but got hung up trying to go around the river spur. By the time I was around it the fighting was practically on top of me again. Right after Mill Pond Spring I picked up the park's shuttle road and I not only mentally knew where I was but visually knew as well though things were even more overgrown than last time I was there. This was the midpoint tube launch area and where the developed area of the park started.

I was halfway to the park's main entrance, but nearly empty of all energy. I needed to find a place to hole up and I needed to find it soon. It was getting dark. I thought of how safe the snack bar had felt … solid block walls, metal doors … and that is where I headed with what little speed I had left to muster.

I reached Dampier's Landing and found the boardwalk. It was a good thing I had to stop or I would have walked straight into what would likely have been my death. The gloaming evening saved me and so did a broken shoe lace I knelt to re-tie.

"DC … DC … what we gonna do? Them squatters from before we took the park have got them some guns this time."

A big, rough looking bald headed man turned and looked coldly at what was obviously one of his underlings. It was a sight out of that crazy movie Mad Max in Thunderdome. They were dressed in a mish mash of what they must have thought was cool survival clothes that made them look tough. Baldy had all sorts of junk clipped to his jacket too that gave it a pseudo-authoritarian look. He said, "We've got guns."

"Not guns like these Boss. They musta got them off some military or National Guard unit."

A low, impatient growl followed these words. "I'm not leaving my stuff. They were too slow to take it themselves. Now it is mine. They can't have it now just because that they've decided they want it after all."

"No sir but … "

This is where I finally found out that I was in the middle of what amounted to a gang war of some type. The guy DC was the leader of one gang and took something before the "squatters" – the other gang – got around to taking it, whatever "it" was. I figured "it" must be in the big truck trailers that I could see lined up in the picnic parking area. It is also where I found that there weren't nearly as many people involved in this "battle" as I had expected. There were definitely dozens on each side but not the hundreds I had imagined.

Three jeeps and some dirt bikes came out of the bushes and the fight was on. I kept my head down and crawled through bushes … and dead bodies, some new and some not … trying to get to the snack shop. I did some shooting of my own the few times I was discovered.

Darkness descended and I never did make it to the snack shop. I crawled into a stand of palmettos and asked God to send all the snakes someplace else for a while. The fighting wasn't quite as heavy during the night but it never let up completely. Every once in a while I would catch myself falling asleep but not for long. A scream that came from close by or a round of automatic gunfire and I was awake with a pounding heart. The one thing that the night gave me was time to worry. I remember what Momma used to call worry … it is taking tomorrow's clouds and to hide today's sunshine. I don't deny that to be true but I doubt Momma ever imagined I would find myself in quite the predicament I was in.

The night seemed to last an eternity. I worried about Rand, prayed he was all right. Tried to keep myself alive so that any worrying that he was doing would be for nothing. I wondered what had happened to Bud and Lou, they had given us such a head start over other people. I prayed the ammo I had would last as long as I needed it to. And I tried to stay warm.

The weather must have dipped down into the 40s, maybe even the upper 30s since I was so near the river and under bushes that never saw much daylight. I sucked starlight peppermints that were so old not all of the plastic wrap would come off of them; trying to keep my coughing from getting so loud someone would hear me. I snuggled into my jacket and used the backpack to keep my hands and face warm. I also ate the snacks and jerky that I had brought to keep my strength up and to stay warm. The last of the spiced tea helped me get through the coldest part of the night. And thanked God that I had thought to wear two pairs of socks – a thin inner pair and a thicker outer pair – rather than just the one I normally wear at home.

The fighting remained sporadic until dawn and as the sun rose it briefly picked back up. That's when I saw him; the baldheaded guy, the one called DC. He didn't look so good; he was never a beauty queen but he looked a little denuded having lost a lot of his little pretties off of his jacket and he had little rivulets of blood running down his face from cuts on his head. At some point he must have gotten one of the big guns from the squatter gang. He was shooting anyone he saw, I doubt it mattered whether they were from his gang or not at that point. He looked as crazy as Mrs. Winston did at her worst.

Then DC was hit once, then twice and as he spun around he sprayed bullets everywhere catching his killers off guard and taking them with him into the abyss. I laid flat on the ground trying to wait out the chaos. When DC fell that seemed to drive everyone that much crazier. There was running and screaming and some hand to hand fighting. I was stepped on twice in the lunacy but no one seemed to notice but me when they did it.

DC's mouth was still moving and I could just read his lips though it was more than my life was worth to actually hear what he said. "It's mine. You can't have it. Finders keepers." What a way to end a life, reverting to selfish childhood while your guts leaked out onto the ground in an abandoned parking lot.

Suddenly it was just over. It was like détente was reached catching everyone by surprise. Enemies looked at each other then ran in opposite directions. They didn't get far as the few survivors started squabbling over the motorcycles and few operating vehicles. More gunfire and then the ranks of fighters had thinned so much everyone got their own bike or jeep and high tailed it out of there. It was like the now bullet riddled trailers were invisible.

I must have stayed on the ground another twenty minutes expecting someone to think of those trailers and come back. I knew I needed to get back to Rand. I knew he would be frantic. I was frantic … but I'm afraid I'm also as nosy as a cat.

I picked my way over to the closest trailer and opened the back. The door was heavier than I expected but I managed to stop it from clanging open hard. The air wafting out of the trailer nearly made my eyes water. As the outside trailer it had taken a lot of bullets and the bullets had broken what was inside. Liquor … lots of it and not just beer; I could tell by the smell. Beer has a yeasty smell to it, the harder stuff smells like … well, like alcohol. I didn't climb up in the trailer although there was room. Last thing I wanted was to get booze and beer foam all over me.

The trailer was far from full. If it was full when it was moved here they'd been drinking a whole lot of the stuff. I closed the door and moved to one of the two remaining trailers. The middle trailer was harder to open; the latch was bent. Then when I got that open I had to pull on the door and it squeaked rather than swung freely. This trailer wasn't full either. Wasn't even a quarter full but what it was full of nearly made my eyes fall out of my head. It was ammo cans loaded up on wooden pallets and wrapped in plastic. The one that was closest to me was unwrapped and most of the cans were sitting around and opened. Most of the ammo I didn't recognize but I dipped my hand into one and pulled out 9mm and I saw boxes in another that were definitely .22LR. I thought about it and then looked around. When I didn't see anyone I pulled out my ammo pouches from my backpack and refilled them both.

Then I got a naughty idea and I'm really, really glad I did. I knew the palmettos where I hid were far enough off the trail that it wouldn't be an obvious place to look. It took me about twenty minutes but I moved all the ammo cans that I could find that had 9mm in them off into those palmetto bushes then I did the same thing to the .22LR … I left the rest alone because I didn't recognize them and I needed to get moving.

After shutting that trailer back up I went to the third and last trailer and opened it up in the same way. It was full of boxes stamped with the letters FEMA, CERT, and FLNG. It was obvious that DC had been a baaaad boy. He really had taken stuff he shouldn't have. Some of the boxes had things called "Grab and Go" kits. I threw one of each type of those cases into the palmettos and followed it with some of the other stuff in there that I thought I could manage. I left the cots alone as they wouldn't do us any good. The hard hats weren't worth the trouble either. I grabbed a couple pairs of safety goggles and shoved them down into my back pack. I found boxes of hand warmers, those cheap rain ponchos, silver emergency blankets, bottles of alcohol and antiseptic and stuff like that, tube tents, cable ties, work gloves, fluorescent safety vests in several different colors, flares, glow sticks, medical responder kits, boxes of plastic food trays, rope, duct tape, folding shovels, garbage bags, empty sandbags, and … empty body bags. I couldn't even get to everything to see what it was but what I could grab cases of I took out of the trailer and hid deeper and deeper into the thick sea of palmettos. I got cut all to ribbons until I thought to use a pair of the gloves I found.

It was now at least an hour later and I was starving. The one thing I hadn't found was food, not even clean drinking water. If there was any in the trailer it was far in the back or might have been eaten up by DC's gang … certainly they had to have been living on something besides the liquor.

I could have spent all day going over the corpses I had been studiously ignoring but I didn't have all day. I had a long way to walk to get home … or at least get back close enough to the Henderson Ranch that I could catch a lift and wouldn't have to walk all the way home. I grabbed the rifle that was lying beside the corpse of the man called DC as well as the magazines that lay on the ground beside him. I looked at the bullets and remembered that there had been an ammo can half full of these types of bullets too which I then hid with the rest of the stuff in the palmettos. The rifle was going to be heavy to carry back to Rand but I figured that coming with gifts might just get me out of some of the hot water I was sure that I was going to be in.

There was no help for it, I started putting one foot in front of the other and headed towards the main gate only to find an awful mess that took me a while to walk around. DC was some kind of paranoid. He'd converted the front entrance of the park into a real end of the world wall and gate using cars that they had somehow piled on top of one another. It looked nothing like the last time I had been there.

I thought about climbing over the cars but after trying twice and feeling the wrecks shift and slide I decided it was safer to go around than over. That was easier said than done and I had to backtrack, go around to the parking area where tubers got out of the river and then cut out of the park towards US27 that way … and it sucked. I finally cut through the last fence and could see the road.

I also thought I was seeing a mirage. There was Lou grazing on the other side of the bike trail that parallels 27.

"Lou? Come here boy, come on."

Lou pricked up his ears and trotted across the road to me. And then Bud came out of the grass further away and followed Lou. Halleluiah I thought, "At least I could take Rand his mules back." Both animals needed their manes and tails combed out badly, they had hitchhikers all over them. Lou had some scratches on his forelegs but nothing bad. Bud was just irritable and snapped at me which started both mules acting like two year old boys in a tussle. I finally grabbed both of their reins up close and got them back under control. Lou was ready to follow me but Bud took more convincing to get moving and then when he started to move he all but dragged me down the road.

"Whoa you dang blasted mule! I said Whoa! We're doing this my way, not yours."

Well, it wasn't as easy to do as it was to say, eventually however Bud got the idea that I was trying to take him home and since that was where he wanted to go anyway he decided to cooperate. It took a couple of tries but I was finally able to mount Lou and keep Bud's reins in my hand. The first time I tried that Bud pulled me backwards and I fell on my butt before I could even swing my leg over Lou's saddle. That jarred my bruised kidney enough to make me want to cry. The second time he nearly pulled me up and over Lou by my arm. I think he was doing it on purpose. Third time was the charm and I made it up and got sat.

The sun was nearly straight over head but at least we were finally moving. I was nervous and the mules picked up on it. It made it even harder for me to keep them in line. They startled as easy as I did; a coyote almost made them run when it darted across the road and when a fly bit Lou on the rump I nearly went flying.

Then as we turned onto CR49 I started to smell smoke … not the fireplace kind of smoke but an acrid bitter smoke. Then about where I knew the Henderson Ranch to be I saw it, thick and black above the trees.

I got off the road and rode the mules along the old property lines. I got close enough that the smell was making my eyes water and the mules balked at going any further. I tied them off to a handy tree … really tied them off so they couldn't run away … and snuck up for a better look. Some idiots were trying to burn their way into Mr. Henderson's property. Several of the railway storage containers that where their front barricade were damaged by fires that were still burning. Behind the trees on my side of the road was a big truck looking thing that had a big machine gun mounted on it … like one of those things the squatters had used against the DC gang. The bullets were belt fed and were bigger than any that I had seen anyone else use. There were about a half dozen men with that truck using it to fire at the ranch and anyone that tried to put the fires out.

Well, it didn't appear they expected anyone to come calling at their backdoor. I took the salvaged rifle and used a fallen tree to prop it on. There was no way I was going to be able to stand and shoot this thing, Rambo I was not. I hoped that a magazine was a magazine was a magazine and that they worked similarly enough that I would know what to do if I needed to change it.

I burned up the whole magazine without even trying. I'll think about what I did later, I'm just too tired and these last two days is as close to real war as I ever want to get. Basically the shooters were no longer a danger to the ranch or anyone else. I tried to call out to the ranch hands but every time I drew a deep breath I would start coughing. Finally I gave up and put my fingers … my dirty fingers, yuck … in my mouth and gave the whistle that I hoped Mitch or someone else would recognize. It was the one that Rand had taught me to call the cows with.

I was just about to whistle again when a young man snuck up on my right. I nearly wet my pants but he grinned, "You gotta be Rand's Kiri."

"Oh! Is Rand here? Where?!"

"Naw … Mitch bet a couple of the guys that it was you whistling. I heard you coughing and told the guys not to take the bet and volunteered to come out and check."

"But Rand … have you seen him?"

"Seen him, heard him, nearly got in a fight with him when he didn't want to stop looking for you last night. Come on. This lot was the last of them. We'll radio over to the Shack and Rand will be here as fast as he can get a horse … or a dirt bike. Lots of those things lying around today."

I made him wait until I got the mules and by the time we crossed the road Mr. Henderson and Mitch were there with the silliest grins on their faces. Well, what was I supposed to have done … just pass on the other side like the first three did in that parable like I was too good, too busy, too important? That's not me and I hope it never is.

Mr. Henderson said, "Already passed the word. You could hear Joiner in the background. If it takes him more than an hour to get here I'll eat my hat. Come here girl." I got a big sweaty hug and was turned over to Tia Cia while the mules were taken to be watered.

The ranch had held up but there had been injuries, mostly minor but one man had died when the attack on the gate first started. "At this rate Chica, there won't be a set of sheets left in the whole county. We've torn almost all we have in our reserves to make coverings for wounds. When we change bandages we are boiling them so that we can reuse them another time. Cassie! There you are mi bonita, take Kiri and you both go get something to eat and drink … now that your grandfather has decided to use some sense he is letting me dress the cut on his head."

Cassie looked bad, her eyes were hard blue marbles sitting above dark circles. "Come on, I want to eat fast and then get back. Can you believe those jerks?! We have a dozen men … a dozen … over in the bunk house that will be at least a week before they are up and around. That doesn't include all of our walking wounded. Jerks! There are little kids … luckily most of them were in one place playing and parents didn't have to go looking for them. Jerks! What did you do to them anyway?"

"They won't be causing any more problems … ever."

"What? Oh. Jerks. Here, you better eat. I'd fix tea but Tia Cia keeps it locked up so that the kids can't get into it accidentally. Water OK?"

"Water is perfect. Have you heard from Rand?"

"You could say that." I looked at her and as I ate a tortilla wrap of rice and beans she explained, "Rand nearly killed Martin Mercer."

I choked on a piece of rice and then asked, "Mercer … the same one that was in our search party?"

"One and the same. I'm sorry to say we all used to be friends until Martin got into some real trouble and was sent to juvie hall back when we were freshman in highschool. He came out even worse than he went in and Poppy refused to let him anywhere near me anymore. Anyway, Rand is blaming Martin for how things have blown up. Apparently he got trigger happy and started shooting when he had been asked to stand down and be quiet. And what is worse, it may be that Mercer was dealing with those people at the park and started shooting to distract things so that no one would find out about it. Bill Sawyer was left in charge of finding out whatever it is that Martin did or did not know. And then the men are going to decide what to do about the gang in the park."

I had finished one wrap and started another one and was thinking about what I should and shouldn't tell this new and improved Cassie when we both heard a commotion outside. I grabbed the big rifle thinking it was another attack and was out the door and then got barreled into and thrown over someone's shoulder before I even got a look at their face. Good thing I recognized the pants pocket I had sewn up just a few days ago.

"Rand! Rand! Put me down! All the blood is rushing to my head and I just ate and I'm going to puke!"

"Out!"

Cassie lit out of the kitchen and sang, "Just call if you need any help!"

The door slammed closed and Rand and I were tripping all over each other trying to say hello, I love you, kiss, and hug all at the same time we were checking the other over for any injuries. What a mess … but it was my mess and I just about wanted to crawl up inside him and stay there forever.

Rand's face … he'd been in yet another fight. At least his nose wasn't swollen this time but he did have a split lip and I tried to not hurt him as I kissed him. He found all of my scratches and bruises and kissed or patted each one. Between one thing and another we finally wound up on the floor sitting in the corner of the room near the wood pile.

"How did you get here so fast?"

"Motorcycle. Where have you been?!"

"Hiding in the palmetto bushes and staying out of trouble."

"It don't sound like you were staying out of trouble."

"OK, I didn't cause any trouble, or not much, and I stayed out of as much as I could. I've got news about what happened in the park … Mr. Henderson might want to hear this."

"Can it wait?"

"I wish. Most of both gangs killed each other off but there are three trailers of supplies that are ripe for salvaging and it is good stuff."

"Fine," but I got a good and hard kiss and more to come before he got off the floor and went to get Mr. Henderson and Mitch.

We took wagons and mules and left as quick as we could meet up with two other contingents, one from the Crenshaw's road and one from River Road, before we could get back to the park. Mercer had broken under questioning and those that could were making for the trailers to get their share.

Despite that we had started out as quickly as we could we still had to fight with returning gang members who were already plundering the trailers. They were mostly focused on the liquor and the ammo but even the other trailer had been gotten into already. The gang members ran with what was in their hands when they saw everyone, leaving a mess behind that was then sat upon by the supposedly more civilized members of our community. Fights broke out and not even Mr. Henderson nor Bill could get them to calm down and split things up more equitably.

When Rand would have entered the fray I grabbed his hand and squeezed. He turned his head and looked at me but I was too afraid to look at him with other people around; too afraid that I would give away that I'd hidden stuff because I'd been afraid of just something like this happening. Even Clyde and Brendon were acting like crazy people making me a little sad for some reason.

Rand pulled me back and away from the fray and into the shade of some low hanging trees. He bent his head down to my ear and if anyone was bothering to pay attention it just looked like we were making out after being apart and worried for each other. He whispered, "What and where?"

"Behind you deep in the palmettos. A little bit of everything but more than we might be able to get in a single little wagon load unless we load down the mules and horses too."

"You'll need to explain how but we'll talk about that later. How far back?"

"At least fifty feet. Now you know how I got all scratched up."

Then we were interrupted. "Hey you two! Dang! Not even Alicia and I would … "

"Knock it off Brendon. You've never lost Alicia in the middle of a freaking gun battle either. What do you want me to do? The trailers are all but cleaned out already."

"We got a good wagon load for the Shack and for the family. Help us to secure the load and then we are going to leave. Good to see you are safe and sound Kiri, don't let my cousin scream at you too loud. He really has been a pain in the a …"

"Brendon … shut up. I've had just about my fill of it all OK?"

"Sure thing Kiri. No harm meant. And I'm serious … glad you are OK and dad and everyone else is too."

Rand and I helped him tie down the wagon load and then Clyde came up, "There are enough empty casings around here to keep us all in bullets for a long while if I can get the other supplies I need. If not, I might be able to melt some of this crap down and make mini balls."

I left them to the discussion and sat on a bench watching the last few human buzzards pick the corpses clean of their guns, equipment, and clothing. I was just starting to wonder who was going to take care of the bodies when I spied Pastor Ken counting them. I walked over.

"There's too many and too few volunteers."

I responded, "What about the concrete plant down the road?"

He looked at me and then gave a tired nod before walking towards Mr. Henderson who then donated a wagon to the cause. We loaded the bodies, some of them as dirty as their odor had indicated. I stayed at the park and waited for Rand to return. People thought it was because I was embarrassed by the sight of the naked bodies but in reality I just wanted to make sure no one accidentally stumbled across the cache I had hidden.

Mr. Henderson strolled over to my side. "Tell me again what happened." So I told it again while he and other people were listening.

"DC was that big bald guy?"

"Yeah but I really don't know who the squatters were. I only heard one side of that story."

"Doesn't matter for now. Probably leftovers from the relocation camps since you said the park had been empty when you came through months back."

"I've been afraid to ask. What happened to Mrs. Winston?"

"They got her back relatively safe if even less sound than she was when she run off. Hortencia is going to help with that. There are a couple of herbs she grows that can be used as a sedative. I've got a man that knows someone growing marijuana and they'll try that next if the herbs don't work. It might not be an issue much longer. The woman was … well … tortured is the ugly word for it. She's frail of body as well as mind now. She may not have the strength to get away another time."

"What about Mr. Winston … and Julia?"

Pastor Ken came over and heard my question. "In their minds Mrs. Winston has already died. They are taking care of her body out of respect but they've already started on their grieving. They aren't the only ones that have relatives that were functional with psychotropic meds that have since run out and left them with someone that is difficult to deal with, they just happen to be the worst example of everything that can go wrong. Thankfully Julia is finding she has more strength than she thought. Ron took her home yesterday and has kept her in bed. So far no contractions but I don't expect her to go full term. From here on out it has to be about making sure Julia gets enough rest and nutritious food so that the baby doesn't come too early and so Julia isn't any more susceptible to anything than we can manage."

"Let Rand and I know if there is anything we can do. I know, I know. I saw people flapping their gums yesterday when I showed up. I'm sure me disappearing overnight didn't help. But I don't hold a grudge … whatever happened is over with and Rand and I think it is just better for the four of us to make a clean start and get passed what used to be. We're all changed from who were … Ron, Julia, Rand and I … there is no sense carrying on like a child about it."

Both men nodded and it wasn't much longer before Rand and the others came back. Mr. Henderson gathered his men and other wagons and turned and told Rand, "Take the wagon home since it is already hitched up to your pair. I'll bring a team and collect it in the morning. Just give us time to get out of here. I suppose you'll want to pick up some of these casings anyway and have Kiri show you where she hid."

I swear, Mr. Henderson must read minds. I'm sure he knew somehow that I had cached some of the stuff but I'm not sure how. Maybe he didn't and I'm reading too much into it. Or maybe I gave it away in my retelling of the story. I don't know.

After Henderson's teams left … to make sure I followed them and saw them leave the main gate … Rand and I waded into the palmettos and started pulling out the cases and boxes I had hidden there. More than once Rand stopped me to give me a kiss. He's taken care of me, of us … I just want him to know that I'm trying to learn to have the presence of mind to do the same thing, to take advantage of things as they come along. I'm not the same high strung kid I was when I first biked here from Tampa. I'm not even the same girl I was when Rand and I got married. I feel a lot older than seventeen. There are days I can tell Rand feels older than his age too.

I was really starting to run down as Rand drove the wagon home. The adrenaline was gone and all the things I had done were starting to knock on my conscience and say, "Hey, remember us … we sure aren't going to let you forget for long."

It had taken us some time to load the wagon so that the contents wasn't sticking above the sides and by the time we left the park and drove passed Henderson's ranch it was dark. All we did was wave and they waved back. No one was sure if the last of the fighting was over so Rand was still on high alert. I was doing my best, but I know I wasn't at my best by any stretch of the imagination. By the time we got home I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. We took care of the animals … Rand had stopped by to make sure they had feed and water … then unloaded the stuff from the wagon into the spare bedroom; another mess for me to take clean up.

Using the lukewarm water from the small black barrel I keep in a sunny spot I took a few bucketfuls inside to shower with. I smelled of sweat, fear, and gun smoke and desperately craved to be clean. I was lathering up when Rand startled me by climbing into the shower with me. That's all it took. I was crying and shaking, but at least this time I didn't puke. I think Rand did a little crying too though I'll never say anything about it.

We rinsed off and were toweling each other dry when he rubbed across my kidney and I jumped. It had gotten dim in the bathroom because we have the shutters closed so Rand walked me into the bedroom so he could flip on the little LED track lights he'd installed. He did a little cussing that I won't record for posterity but considering the guy was already dead there wasn't anything Rand could do about it. Well, the inevitable was inevitable and he told me to stay in bed while he checked on things one more time.

When he came back, it was with a small summer sausage and some of the last of our packaged cheese and crackers. I lit a candle and Rand lit the wood stove to drive off the chill that was starting to creep in in earnest. I also put on a flannel sleeping shirt and some fuzzy socks. We had a picnic on the floor … Rand hates crumbs in bed even more than I do … and afterwards we cuddled and talked.

Rand asked, "Did you know that this Thursday is Thanksgiving?"

"What? Well, I mean I guess I did but it has kind of snuck up on me. Do you want to have your family over or go over to their place?"

"What would you think about it just being us this year? Would it hurt your feelings any?"

"Noooo. But is there a problem."

"No, not really. I just … I'm tired Kiri. I want a day just for us. I want to celebrate the things that we should be thankful for but … we've left the animals too much recently and I don't want to keep leaving them locked up in the barn. I've seen lots of turkey and I'd like to try bow hunting again. Farmer's Almanac says that it is supposed to be a cold Thanksgiving this year and … I just really … this sounds bad but I don't want to get caught up in the same old, same old that happens with Uncle George at the holidays. It can get depressing and … I need a break from depressing Kiri. I need … "

I put my fingers over his mouth gently and said, "You don't need to justify how you feel. If you want it to just be the two of us then that is the way that I'm happy for it to be. No questions. No comments."

Rand seemed to relax all the way after that and was soon asleep. Not me. I wanted to sleep but my tired had vanished. I had no intention of writing as much as I have but … sometimes you have to bleed it off so that you can get it out of your face and put away for a while. I expect I'm going to be paying for my long night once Rand wakes up. Either way, I'm finally ready for bed and that's where I'm going.


	61. Chapter 60

Chapter 60

 **November 20** **th** – I think today was the first time I felt truly resentful of the responsibilities I now have. All I wanted to do was stay in bed, and I wanted Rand to stay with me and I just wanted the rest of the world to go take a flying leap head first over a steep cliff.

I'm tired of people shooting at me. I'm tired of shooting other people. I'm tired of watching how low people can sink … including friends and family. I'm tired of having to scrape away the outside layers of people and events to find good things to balance the equation. I'm tired of having to remind myself that "peoples is peoples" and that life isn't fair. I'm tired of having to decide between what is emotionally easier and more comfortable and what may help us down the road.

Life was a lot easier when there was only me. In a way life got easier once Rand and I totally committed to one another and I'd never give him up willingly if I was given the chance to fight for him. But, at the same time my life has also gotten more complicated … my baggage, his baggage, our baggage. People, people, people … my tolerance level for them is pretty low at the best of times; the last little bit and today have been more challenging than usual.

It was so hard to wake up this morning and get going. Unfortunately for me Rand was in a really good mood. Fortunately for me he is pretty good at reading my moods and suggested that I stay in bed and he'd get breakfast. Well, of course I couldn't stay in bed after such a sweet offer so I got up and tried to make up for being so curmudgeonly by making a nice omelet. The food even helped my own mood a bit and so did the fact that Rand did the milking.

After breakfast I felt a little more human and tried to get down to business. I had a lot of cabbage that I needed to do something with. First thing I did after looking over the garden was can some cole slaw.

Take three pounds of cabbage and cut it into quarters and remove the core. Then wash two large carrots and cut it into chunks. Next use whatever method you have handy to shred the cabbage and carrots into "slaw" size. I've got one of those old had crank shredders that Momma used at canning time but I also tried using the fine shredders holes on a cheese shredder, I used the crank simply because it reminded me of good times with Momma. After you have everything shredded fine dice two large onions and toss them into the cabbage and carrot mess. Mix one teaspoon of pickling salt into the "slaw" stuff and let it sit at room temperature for forty-five minutes. While the "slaw" is sitting, mix two cups of white vinegar, one and one-half cups of sugar and two tablespoons of celery seed in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and then boil for one minute. Cool the vinegar mix slightly and then pour it into the slaw and mix well. Ladle the coleslaw mixture into hot, sterilized jars, adjust two piece lids, and process for 15 minutes in boiling water bath canner. To serve the slaw use it as is or drain it and then stir in salad dressing of your choice or mayonnaise. I figure this will be a good way to have some "fresh" greens when it is too hot to actually grow them.

While the slaw was processing I made beet relish. I had canned extra beets just for this purpose. Combine one quart of chopped, cooked beets, one quart of chopped cabbage, one cup chopped onions, one cup of chopped sweet red peppers, one and one-half cups sugar, one tablespoon of horseradish, one tablespoon of salt, and three cups of vinegar in a large saucepot. Simmer the whole pot for ten minutes then bring it to a boil. Pack the now hot relish into hot jars, leaving ¼" headspace. Adjust the caps and process for fifteen minutes in a boiling water bath. This yielded nearly ten half-pints. The little bit that wouldn't fit into a jar I put in a bowl for the lunch and dinner table today. It was a nice change.

With the beet relish in the canner and the slaw sitting on the counter cooling I started the corn relish. I think I have just enough fresh ears of corn left after this to roast some corn for Thanksgiving and after that I'm going to let the remainder dry. We're going to need a lot of feed next year and I'd like to have enough corn to make cornmeal from as well since there is no way the wheat flour is going to last unless I use up all of the wheat I have in the long term storage cans. But first we'll have to pull out the seed we will need for next planting season.

For the corn relish you start with eighteen ears of corn and boil them for five minutes. Then you cut the corn from the cob and put it into a pan. I had to use one of Momma's huge porcelain dishpans for this. These are part of the "junk" she got when my grandparents passed away. There is a picture of me sitting in one of these when I was about three or four years old, that's how big these things are.

To the corn I added one small head of chopped cabbage, one cup of chopped onion, one cup of chopped sweet green peppers, one cup of chopped sweet red peppers, one cup of sugar, two tablespoons of dry mustard, one tablespoon of celery seed, one tablespoon of mustard seed, one tablespoon of salt, one tablespoon of turmeric, one quart of vinegar, and one cup of water. Then I brought everything to a boil; reduced the heat and simmered for twoenty minutes. Once the relish simmered I packed it hot into hot jars, leaving a quarter inch headspace. I adjusted the caps and processed them for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath. I got a full six pints out of the batch so I made a second one to make sure there was enough to last through the year.

In case I've failed to mention it, I was raised on relish trays. Momma could put one together at the shortest notice imaginable. The door rack in our refrigerator always had lots of goodies to choose from and all of them homemade. But that is a problem for me because I don't have a refrigerator. There is the cooler/freezer in the barn but that is fairly small and is reserved for the dairy products for the most part. I also hope to use it when it comes time have more eggs than I can use in a day so that I can save them up. Rand is talking about something called an "icy ball" but it requires ammonia gas I think. There are so many projects we could do but might not be able to all for the lack of one vital ingredient or piece. The list is in small print and it is still longer than my arm; and getting longer every week it seems.

It wasn't lunch time but I set some of the shredded cabbage that I had set aside and made a regular cole slaw and then made some hush puppies. It would have been nice to have had some fish but we didn't, well not regular fish anyway. What I made was salmon croquettes from one of the last cans of salmon in the store bought supplies. The hushpuppies didn't go with them too well but Rand didn't seem to notice; he ate his two and most of my second one since I wasn't as hungry as I thought I was going to be. Mostly all I seemed to want to do was pick at my food. Rand noticed and asked if I was feeling OK.

I wasn't sure how to answer him. Physically I was just tired but I feel all in knots on the inside. He suggested I was having a delayed reaction to what had happened in the park. I suggested I was having a reaction to people in general and that I wished they would just all behave so we could get on with living our lives.

After an early lunch Rand asked if I wanted to take a walk. That sounded nice at the time. It was too hot for a jacket and too cool to go without something so I grabbed one of Rand's flannel shirts wishing I had a few of my own that didn't come down practically to my knees and didn't wind up looking silly because of how much I had to roll the sleeves up. Rand said I looked "cute" which only made me feel grumpy again, but I relaxed as we walked. Of course the rifles we carried made holding hands difficult so we mostly just walked side by side and spoke quietly.

We were up at the dogleg where the gully is when Rand mentioned that the smell isn't noticeable any more. I realized he was right and am relieved. For a while there it was pretty bad even though I had carried all those bodies far over into the pines on the other side of the property line. The vultures are pretty numerous even today. I guess they've started calling that spot home. The only good thing is that apparently it freaks people out to see all of the vultures around here constantly and people stay away; superstitious or scared, I don't really know which. Hoss got a kick out of telling me the other day that I was getting a "reputation." Great. Lovely. Is the sarcasm coming through strong enough? I doubt it. I hate having people talk about me, I always have. People don't know a tenth of what they think they know. It is a wonder that Rand even wanted to have anything at all to do with me.

This whole "I want it to be just the two of us" thing for Thanksgiving is fine with me but I do worry that maybe it is me driving people away rather than Rand wanting to get away. I don't see him being able to live that way for long though, he is too much of a people person or at least he is compared to me. He told me not to worry about it but that wasn't much of an answer.

When we got up to the end of our road I really noticed just how over grown the ditches and right of ways are getting. Little oak tree sprouts are everywhere and the Johnson grass is taking over. Cracks in the road are forming too but CR49 is still in better shape than the parts of US90 that have seen fighting. I have been noticing that the parts on our acreage that used to get bush hogged semi-regularly are really getting bad too. Rand hopes that the goats do their thing and we have some kids (of the goat persuasion) this coming spring. They haven't up to this point so either Billy isn't interested or the does aren't interested in Billy … or we aren't doing something right. It must be more difficult than just introducing the boys and girls to one another. Good grief, I hope I don't have to set up a goat dating service; I've got enough to do.

Of course more goats mean a bigger pen area for them. Rand said we could probably have them in with the cows but I'm not sure how many cows and goats together will work on that space. Rand says around here you can generally work two cows per acre of land. We've got about ten acres fenced in but if the rye fields don't work out we'll make that claimed land a second pasture area and move the animals back and forth as necessary.

Bradley was manning the two-man station that Mr. Henderson asked our "permission" to set up across the road from us. It isn't really directly across the road, more across the road and north about a hundred feet or so, closer to the intersection of CR49 and US90. We walked down to hear the news. It wasn't good; it wasn't horrendous but it wasn't good either.

Rather than being concentrated in one area and battling each other the remnants of the "squatters" and the "DC gang" were out and about looking to recoup their losses and to do whatever it is that they thought they were doing to survive. Frankly, the population in this area has gotten thin enough that surely they could simply build their own homestead and blend in with little effort. I don't understand why they have to make it so hard on themselves and everyone around them. People on both sides are going to wind up hurt or dead and there has been enough of that already for Pete's sake.

There have been a few raids here and there but nothing too valuable was stolen as most people don't have stuff worth getting shot or knifed over. Those that have something valuable like animals or food of some type are learning to protect it sufficiently that anyone trying to steal it will take a heavier loss than anything they gain by the effort. And I don't know how but word gets around and often a successful repelling of a thief makes other potential thieves and raiders think twice, or at least that is what we are learning from the few raiders and thieves that have been caught alive and then questioned. Usually however a raider or thief escapes … or they don't. There aren't any jails these days, not since the National Guard pulled out, and people aren't shy about using deadly force when necessary.

Martin Mercer's family got hit especially hard but no one can confirm whether it was done by one of the gangs or by locals looking for vengeance. It's hard to say and after what I saw happen at the park neither one would surprise me.

I got tired of being eyed by the young guy working with Bradley and left the conversation and started stuffing my pockets with the acorns I found on the ground a few feet away. They were different than the ones that we have around the house. The ones at the house are kind of an oval shape with a pointy end opposite where the cap end. The ones by the guard shack were small and round. I also saw a huge stand of Spanish Bayonet … a type of yucca (yuck – uh not you-ca). In the next couple of days I'll dig up the smaller ones and take them back to our place and plant them in such a way to help keep the cows under control. I'd really like to eventually be able to enclose the entire cow pasture with agave and Spanish Bayonet. It is a food source that will double as a fence and protective barrier for the animals. Rand loves the idea, now it is just a matter of getting enough of the plants. He brought back a lot from the tree farm in Lee but they are years away from getting big enough to do the job.

Rand finished talking and we started walking back. "Sorry if you were bored."

"I wasn't bored just … I hate being stared at and that guy with Bradley … "

"Was he bothering you?! I didn't see anything … if he … "

"Down big fella. It wasn't like that. It looked more like if I would have said 'boo' he would have jumped out of his skin. I'm not a freak no matter what some people might think. You finally helped me to get over feeling like that and I thought I was over caring what people thought but … "

"Hey now … it really did bother you didn't it?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry Rand, I just have days where doing the people thing is hard for me."

"Don't worry about it Babe and if it matters I don't think Brian meant anything bad. He has always been a bit jumpy, that's why he teams with guys like Bradley that are calm as an ox. He is actually a lot better than he used to be."

"Lucky Bradley," I said while rolling my eyes.

Rand laughed and we walked the rest of the way home not talking much about anything in particular, just enjoying each other's company. Maybe that is why God teamed me with Rand, he balances out my issues. I wonder what I give Rand beside the beginnings of male patterned baldness?

Once we were back in our yard Rand went off to work on the hot water thingy for the barn roof. It will probably be the spring before I can use it, certainly will have to be after any chance of freeze has passed. Rand said we won't get too many of those nights but there will be enough of them that we could still bust a pipe.

For me I went and picked the miniature blue popcorn that was dry on the stalk, shucked them and laid them on the counter to cure for a couple of more days just to be on the safe side before I put the kernels in storage. I also picked the butternut squash. They aren't big like the ones I used to see in the grocery store but they were big enough that when I split them, stuffed them, and then baked them they made half a meal for Rand and I. I added the leftover hushpuppies and then made a rice pilaf to round things out. I canned a load of the squash and had them finished by the time Rand came in to clean up so we could eat before it got dark.

While we ate I asked Rand what his favorite Thanksgiving foods were; pretty standard stuff … turkey, stuffing, green beans, corn casserole, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. I have a few more that I'm going to add to this, the only thing missing will be cranberries but I have some dried ones that look like raisins that I've been saving for something special. I'll have to start thinking about that tomorrow. It may only be the two of us but I'm determined that it will still be nice and memorable.

 **November 21** **st** – Brendon and Clyde came by today. I'm glad that Rand and I managed to put a lot of the stuff from Ichetucknee away in the dormer room before they arrived. They were still crowing about what they had been able to get … in some cases what they had basically taken out of other people's hands. They kind of picked at Rand by saying that they could have used his help if he and I hadn't been making out. Rand's a better person than I … I would have blown both barrels at them but Rand helped me ratchet back my need to defend him by putting his arm around me and saying he had different priorities and that we weren't hurting enough that he was willing to risk getting hurt for something that wouldn't do much more for us than what we already have.

Brendon rolled his eyes … gosh there are days that if it wasn't for Alicia I could gladly kick him in the shins … but Clyde looked thoughtful and said, "Well, you did come out with that rifle." Rand just responded with a noncommittal, "Mmmm." Clyde is the "go to" guy when you need something fixed on your gun or reloads for your ammo; I think it is called being a gunsmith or something like that. I think he expected Rand to show off the rifle. It is actually up in the gun vault and the ammo I stored out in the palmettos has been safely tucked away as well.

Clyde gave me a bit of a look and said he noticed a big gap in the ammo that was in the trailer compared with the weapons that the bad guys were found with. Rand replied, "I don't recall noticing but were you able to figure out what they took before you guys ran them off?"

Clyde seemed to relax and then replied, "Couldn't tell. Stuff was spilled all over the place and people were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Don't know if they were even paying attention to what they took." I guess Rand's reply had given him an alternative theory to think on rather than being suspicious of me and what I might have done. I wonder if that is what gave me away to Mr. Henderson or if it was something else?

Then they went on about how the folks over on their road were getting together and were going to share a big pilgrim style Thanksgiving. Not a hint of an invitation. Rand looked relieved that they didn't ask. I think he just wants what he wants but doesn't want to create a situation to get it. That's fine. Whether it bothers Rand or not I'll tuck this little incident into my memory banks. I won't be vindictive about it but if anything is eventually said I will bring it up. Normally I would not care at all, but for these people to be Rand's family they too easily exclude him from stuff. It may not be ill-intentioned but that doesn't make it right.

I was in the middle of baking pumpkins so that I could make some pumpkin-y stuff over the next few days … pancakes, bread, muffins, pies, empanadas, etc. … so I didn't bother playing hostess to the hilt like I might have noirmally. Brendon mentioned how good something smelled and I said, "Thank you." If he was looking for something to eat he had hacked off the wrong girl.

I disappeared for a bit leaving them to do the guy-talk thing without me under foot. After they left Rand walked around to the summer kitchen, sat in a chair, laid his head down and then started laughing. Laughing!

"Babe I wish you had been out there. They were doing everything but standing on their heads trying to get me to admit that you had somehow gotten to stuff before they all did. I didn't even act like I knew what they were hinting at and they wouldn't come right out and ask. I haven't had so much fun driving Brendon crazy in a long time."

"And that is funny why?" I asked perplexed and worried at the same time.

"Oh, just 'cause." After he got a look at my face Rand said, "Oh come on. Now don't go getting all upset. This isn't a problem."

"Oh it isn't is it? They are basically saying that I got to stuff before they did and that they want to know what we got. For one thing they make it sound like I took unfair advantage of the situation. For another, even if I did – and I did of course – but even if I did, why do they need to know what I took out of those trailers? What business is it of theirs? They weren't exactly playing fair themselves when they were after 'their' share. What good do they think it is going to do for them to know what it is or isn't? Are they going to try and 'equitably' redistribute stuff?!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa … I think you are taking this a little too personal Honey."

"Am I? Rand, I'm sorry but I just don't have a real good opinion of people. I've met some good people that have helped me out when they have had no reason to do so. I've also met some dregs of humanity. Trust me, there are a whole lot more dregs than there are good. I know these folks are your family … and I guess by extension mine if they'll claim me … but I saw how Brendon and Clyde acted yesterday; Paul and some of Henderson's men too. That was … disappointing … and it reminded me how people can get, even those we care about and like. No offense against your people but it makes me wonder if they would turn on us if they thought we had more than we should."

"I'll admit things got a little hairy while people were taking stuff out of the trailers. "

"A little?"

"Ok, some of those people … including members of my own family … acted a little too much like the same people they were taking the stuff from. I'll even admit that watching them was a bit like being the only sober person at a drunken frat party. But I'm not sure I'm willing to extrapolate from that and say that if they knew what we had stored away here that they'd make us share the wealth."

"Mmmmm. Then why don't we tell them about all the secret storage stuff we have? Why do we keep the dormer room and its content a secret? The hidden pantry closed when anyone is around? Invite people into the house rather than having a sit down on the front porch?"

Rand looked at me and I could see him scrunching his eyebrows and that at least means that he is really thinking. "You have a point. You may have a bigger point than I want to concede. I don't know."

"Oh Rand, I don't want to take away the … confidence or belief … you have in people. I love that you get the people thing better than I do. Maybe I'm too suspicious. I don't know. Please don't be in a bad mood because …"

He put his arms around my waist and pulled me into his lap to let me know he wasn't mad and said, "Babe I'm not. I don't think that my family would try that equitable redistribution crap the government tried. That doesn't mean that I'll ignore the potential problems either. So yeah, we keep our stuff to ourselves. Uncle George hasn't exactly been helping us for free. I've got to go next week and work in his hayfields and I am the one that bought the pigs and beef that I'm claiming as mine during butchering week before this all got started as well as the feed for them. I love my family; I'm not blind to their faults. I'm not saying they wouldn't try guilting us into doing something but I'm nearly positive they wouldn't use force."

"Guilting isn't bad enough?"

Rand smiled again and said, "I love you, you know that? Don't worry about the family. If they try using guilt just ignore it. And no, I'm not saying that it is always easy but I stopped letting it get to me a while ago. You helped with that even more. They can't make us do anything so try and relax about it. To be honest I'll be glad to see the other side of butchering. This way if something does happen … and I'm not saying it will … we can afford a little more separation. I do love Uncle George but I don't like feeling beholden to him any more than necessary."

I just don't see how people do it. I can't remember stuff like that happening in my family. But then again, we lived far enough away from the bulk of my family that when we visited there wasn't time to fuss and fight or whatever. We only had time to enjoy each other's company before having to leave again. Come to think of it, none of them fought too hard to be my guardian and I kind of got dropped out of the family loop after a while. Oh, whatever. That stuff happened a long time ago and there is no changing it. It is what it is. I just don't understand people and their drama sometimes.

Spent some time tonight cracking acorns; better late than never. I'm going to try and make acorn flour but for now I'm going to bed.

 **November 22** **nd** – Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I've been busy. First of all Rand got our turkey in the middle of the morning which meant that I had to stop what I was doing and clean the bird so that we could put it in the cooler until I can start cooking it in the morning. I plucked it like a chicken … so not fun … and saved the best feathers for quills and threw the rest in the compost hole Rand dug way back in the corner of the property for junk that we can't do anything else with. To pluck the turkey I had to heat up a huge pot of boiling water outside, hang the turkey over the pot, and dip boiling water to pour over the turkey to scald the feather so that they would come off in one tug. Once I had finished that Rand took the bird and took care of the innards. He left me the giblets to make gravy with and then took the other bits off for Woofer and Fraidy to have at their leisure but out of my sight. I'm not easily grossed out but I do have my limits.

The bird is clean and sitting in the cooler. It looks pretty big for us, it weighs fourteen pounds now that it has been cleaned inside and out, and will take about three and a half hours to roast. I'll start first thing in the morning after my early chores are finished.

I did some baking today that will hold over for tomorrow's meal. One of the things I baked was Pumpkin Bread but instead of white sugar I used some of the sorghum that Rand had helped harvest. Mix together one-half cup of sorghum syrup, one cup of pumpkin puree, two eggs, one-half cup oil, and 0one-half cup of water. Next sift together one and two-thirds cup of plain flour, three-quarter teaspoon of salt, one-quarter teaspoon of baking soda, one-quarter teaspoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of all spice, and one-half teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredient and mix well. Then add ½ cup golden raisins & one-half cup chopped nuts. Instead of golden raisins I used some of the dried cranberries and for the nuts I used the pecans that I had shelled. Pour batter into a large prepared loaf pan and bake at 325 degrees F for about forty-five minutes. If I had to do it over again I'd probably have added a little more sweetening but then again I like my quick breads sweet.

I started my "sponge" for making salt rising bread tomorrow by scalding a cup of milk and sifting a half cup of cornmeal into it and then cooking the two until it thickened. From there I pour the gunk into a sanitized quarter mason jar, covered the top of the jar with some cheesecloth, wrapped the whole thing in a towel and then set that in the warming bin of the princess. Hopefully it will do its thing overnight and tomorrow I'll be able to finish the bread.

I baked a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie and those are sitting in the pie keep. Instead of a bunch of other pies I made some dried fruit empanadas from the apple and peaches I dried out of our own orchard. I baked the pan of cornbread today to use to make the stuffing with tomorrow as well.

When I wasn't cooking I was cleaning. I wanted to eat in the formal dining room. We hadn't yet, not even for our wedding feast, and I wanted to just for the heck of it. The fancy dishes and silver were pretty dirty so I spent over an hour trying to clean up all of the serving pieces I wanted to use. Just in case it got dark early or it took longer to cook than I expected I took down the useless like fixture over the table and hung an oil lamp … looked antique but was actually a modern anniversary gift from my grandfather to my grandmother when I was little. Memaw used to use it when the power would go out at the farm. It uses regular lamp oil instead of kerosene which I guess is a good thing since that is what I have. Rand has about five gallons of kerosene but he wants to save that in case he has to sit up during the night with the animals if it gets really cold.

In the midst of everything else I worked on the acorn flour. I can guarantee this is not something that I would want to have to rely on all the time. It is a lot of work.

First you dump your acorns into a bucket or bowl of water and if you have any floaters you can toss those since they are likely insect eaten on the inside. Good acorns sink because their nut meats are intact. Drain the water off of the acorns and into a big kettle of water and bring that water to a boil. While the water is heating start cracking acorns. And crack … and crack … and crack. You will have to pick out the nut meats but don't freak if they are all broken. You want them that way.

Put your nutmeats in a bowl and then pour the boiling water over them. Stir them up a bit and then let them soak until the water darkens. When I first started this morning it would only take fifteen or twenty minutes for the water to get ucky looking. By this evening it took forty-five minutes. I've set them to soak for the night and I'll see how dark the water is in the morning. If it still looks like tea then I'll change to fresh water and keep going until the acorns don't leech any more tannin into the water … the tannin is what makes the water dark. I hope to be able to finish up the acorn flour tomorrow but we'll have to wait and see.

I also made marshmallows because I needed them for the sweet potato casserole I am making tomorrow. To make the marshmallows I combined three tablespoons of Knox dry gelatin with one-half cup of cold water and let it stand for an hour. In the meantime, I heated two cups of sugar, three-quarter cup of light corn syrup, one-half cup of water, and one-quarter teaspoon of salt to a boil and cooked the whole mess until it reached the firm-ball stage (244°F; 117°C). Once there I removed it from the heat and poured the glop slowly over the gelatin, beating it constantly with my heaviest whisk. I beat it for a good 15 minutes; my arm felt like it was going to fall off and is still sore tonight. When thickened but was still warm, I added two tablespoons of vanilla (or you can add any flavor you want if you feel creative). I spread the mixture in a pan that had been lightly dusted with cornstarch and left it dry overnight. I'll finish them up tomorrow.

For the most part the day was a lot better for me than the day before had been even with Mitch and Mr. Henderson dropping by. Mitch looked cross-eyed at me making acorn flour but he said he'd heard that other people were doing it. Both men admitted that Cassie had surprised them and Mitch had an … interested look on his face I guess you would call it; like he was interested in this new Cassie but wasn't quite sure what to make of her or whether to trust her. Who knows? If they push her too hard to change they could make a big a mess as Cassie did by not wanting to change at all, but it isn't any of my business. It's not like I have a great track record when it comes to people skills.

After the two men left Paul and Sadie showed up. I like Sadie; she's a bit of a smart aleck just like me only she is sweeter and better at laughing at herself. She is also as nosy as I am about wanting to learn how to do something that she sees and has never done before. She was interested in the acorn flour and wrote down the directions to take make to Momma O who I have no doubt has some improvement that can be made on the process.

After they left Rand said all three men had been feeling him out to see if we had taken anything from the park. Rand said he only mentioned the rifle and then asked if they had heard of any ammo for it like we didn't have any beyond what was left in the magazines I had picked off of DC. Rand said Mitch backed off like he was no longer sure of his suspicions but Mr. Henderson never did push at all. He is such a wiley man; I'm sure Mr. Henderson suspects something but it looks like he doesn't really care or maybe approves. Whether he will use the information down the road or not is a horse of a different color.

Either way I think I'm done worrying about it too much. We'll just need to remember to be careful of exposing the stuff down the road before it gets more spread out in the community through trading and the like.

 **November 23** **rd** – Happy Thanksgiving! I am as full as a tick and we've got enough leftovers that I don't think I'll have to do any cooking tomorrow which is really nice for a change.

I was up early, even before Rand for once since I was a little sick to my stomach for some reason; probably just leftover nerves. That happens to me on occasion. He was up though by the time I was out of the bathroom and even had the fire in the princess going for me warming up a pot of water. Tea was exactly what I wanted and Rand took a mug of coffee with him when he went to the barn to deal with morning animal chores.

The first thing I did was check the sponge and it was bubbly and smelled pretty yeasty which meant that I had done it right. Then it was time to get the rest of it going. In a saucepan I combined four cups of milk and one tablespoon of sugar and heated it to scalding. Then I cooled it off slightly and added it to the cornmeal mixture in a large mixing bowl. Next I gradually stirred in six cups of flour that I had ground last night and set the whole mess in a warm place to rise until it doubled (that took approximately 2 hours).

By that time Rand came back inside and brought the turkey with him along with the skimmed cream from yesterday's milking. I rinsed the bird off again just to be safe in case it had gotten anything on it between the cooler and the house then I plopped the carcass in a roasting pan with a lid. While I was doing this Rand ate a couple of slices of pumpkin bread with homemade butter. He offered me a piece but my stomach was still saying no. He gave me a kiss and said he'd do the milking for me again which was a big relief.

I buttered the turkey's skin and then put the lid on the roaster and slid it into the preheated oven. I put a quart of green beans in a pan and then seasoned them with salt, pepper, and a little corn oil. It wouldn't be the same as having bacon drippings but one of these days we'll have our own bacon. I didn't have any fresh potatoes, I don't even know how I'm going to grow any since you need seed potatoes to begin with, but I did have one can of potatoes left over from some of the original stored items. I put those in after the beans had cooked down a while.

After the beans I put the sweet potato casserole together. I had to use canned sweet potatoes and I was said that when they were gone that might be another thing I never see again, or at least not for a long time. I layered the pineapple and sliced sweet potatoes in a 8x8 baking pan, sprinkled a little mace and cinnamon over them and then covered and set it aside.

It was finally time to get going on the bread again. I took the bread mixture and added three-quarter cup of shortening, one-half cup of sugar and one tablespoon of salt and mixed well. From there I gradually added six cups of flour and worked it in. Then came the hard part. I put a generous dusting of flour on the island and turned the dough mixture onto it. I worked in more flour and kneaded it for about 20 minutes. Then I divided the dough into four equal parts and put it in greased and floured loaf pans. I brushed the tops of the loaves with shortening and placed them in the warming tray of the princess to give it time to rise to double its size (took approximately 2 hours).

I put the ears of corn on to roast and finished putting together the cornbread stuffing. I was a little stuck at that point waiting for the oven to be freed up so I did a little cleaning, put fresh water on the acorns (the water was still kind of tea colored), made the bed, pulled some apple juice out of the pantry, and a few other odds and ends. By the time I was finished with that it was time to take out the turkey. The turkey required a few minutes to brown the skin up a little but not long. I set the roaster on the side board to let the turkey rest and then popped in the bread and the sweet potato casserole, bread, and small pan of cornbread stuffing that I made up … it was like fitting together a jigsaw puzzle but it worked.

At twenty minutes the casserole had to be topped by the marshmallows that I had cut up using kitchen shears dipped in cornstarch. And then it went back in until the top was bubbly and brown. When that was done and ready to come out so was the stuffing. I brushed the bread with some more butter and called Rand in to get cleaned up while the loaves backed for another twenty minutes or so.

It was getting very cool outside but I hadn't noticed because the kitchen was so warm. Rand said he could see his breath out in the barn but he didn't think we were going to get a freeze. We'll check thermometer one more time before we go to bed. While Rand washed up I finished setting the table and lit the lamp just because of the heavy cloud cover and everything looked so nice and cheery I wished for a camera to capture the moment. Then for some reason I started getting sad. I have absolutely no idea why. Stupid hormones I guess.

I wiped my eyes before Rand came out and when he asked all I said was, "Onions I guess." There is no sense in upsetting him when there isn't anything he can do about it.

We had fun trying to follow the directions in one of Momma's etiquette books on how to carve a turkey but after a few minutes we just laughed and the meat came off however it came off. Rand likes the dark meat and I like the light meat so he took a drumstick and I took some of the breast. It was good if I do say so myself except maybe a little dryer than I meant for it to be. Momma used to cook her turkeys in a paper grocery sack but I daren't use ours for that since we might need the few we have for something else.

We ate and ate and ate. Neither one of us has eaten like this for a long time. It isn't often that we eat passed being full. You could have rolled me around the house I ate so much. Even with that there are plenty of leftovers. Rand asked if I would make turkey sandwiches tomorrow and I said he'd probably be eating turkey until he was sick of it.

He said, "Not a chance Babe. This is good. Not even Uncle George's turkey came out like this. He usually deep fried a small turkey and by the time we all got a taste it was practically gone. Uncle George can't stand Thanksgiving leftovers."

"Well then I guess it is a good thing he isn't getting any of yours. You want me to save any of the pie before I put it away?"

Maybe next year we'll share Thanksgiving with someone else but it was nice to have our first Thanksgiving just be the two of us. Rand went out and put the animals up early with a little extra feed for their own Thanksgiving dinner and it gave me time to clean up. I was still at it when he came back in and between the two of us it wasn't a minute until it really was finished.

It also wasn't a minute before Rand got silly and started chasing me around the house. It is a wonder we could even move. We ended up building a fire in the fireplace and we've just been relaxing ever since. I crocheted a bit but couldn't seem to set my mind to it. I finally put it aside and started writing in my journal. I don't know what is wrong with me to have the fidgets so much.

I think I have a game plan for tomorrow. I need to finish the acorn flour. I want to try my hand at making soda; Rand mentioned that he was craving one the other day and it has got my taste buds tingling for some now. We'll need to finish off the leftovers and I want to can some turkey soup and maybe make some turkey jerky. I really need to start thinking about what I'm going to do when certain things start running out like white sugar and wheat flour. I've got general ideas in my head but I need to sketch out a timeline and put it on our big calendar.

I think for now though I'll just go climb in Rand's lap. I haven't got a clue what is up with me but I don't like this kind of coming apart around the edges feeling I have. There hasn't been any more bad on the radio … well, no worse than normal … hardly any traffic lately to be honest. Nothing is really going wrong. Rand and I are doing all right. Maybe I'm just looking for trouble or maybe it really is just hormones. I don't like it whatever it is.


	62. Chapter 61

Chapter 61

 **November 24th** – Felt a little better today and was up early and a good thing too. I realized that I had completely overlooked the persimmons that were ripening. I've got so many that I need to deal with that now I'll be using persimmons to make stuff for the next several days to make sure nothing spoils. I was so upset I was nearly crying which I seem to be on the brink of a lot lately but Rand told me I was being too hard on myself. He said that he didn't realize they were ripe either and he'd been over in the orchard pulling the last little pithy apples to throw to the pigs. That made me feel a little better but not much.

Ever since I was bad sick, maybe before but I didn't notice it so much on a regular basis, it is like just anything makes me want to tear up. This is ridiculous. I shouldn't feel this way. Rand and I talked a little bit last night and he said that he hadn't noticed that I was very "weepy" and then wanted to know if I had noticed that he seemed crankier than he used to be. I said, "Cranky?! Rand you always seem to be in a good mood to me except every so often."

"Well, that's a relief. But I tell you the truth Babe, there are days when I'm glad it is just the two of us around here. It is like I'm all stretched out with not as much patience as I think I used to have."

So it seems maybe both of us are feeling "stretched out." Maybe it is all of the extra and constant work. Maybe it is the complete change our lives have gone through over the last six to twelve months, heck for both of us at least since the pandemic started affecting our lives. Maybe it is partly that first year of marriage jitters. I don't know exactly what it is but we are both feeling it and neither one of us considers it the other's fault which is good. I know what stress feels like and while I do feel stressed, I don't necessarily feel stressed out. I wish I could explain the difference. Hopefully we'll get a handle on it because apparently neither one of us likes the feelings we are having too much.

For breakfast I toasted up some of the salt rising bread, heated up some sliced turkey, made a small batch of homemade mayo and grabbed one of the last heads of loose leaf lettuce out of the garden. Then I fried up a couple of eggs and opened a can of that Yoder's bacon (the camouflage cans gave me the giggles so maybe I'm farther on the other side of crazy than I think). Then to surprise Rand I used up the some of the last of those little triangle cow logo cheeses that are supposed to taste like Swiss cheese. Ta da … restaurant-fancy turkey club sandwiches only without the tomatoes. They were so filling I had to save half of mine for a mid-morning snack.

Right after breakfast I was determined to finish the acorn flour. I drained the acorns one last time and rinsed them by the colander full (I lined the colander with cheesecloth beforehand). I took a cautious nibble and when my pucker didn't turn inside out I called the acorns completely leached out. I spread the broken up nutmeats on baking sheets and put them in the oven for a bit of drying and toasting. From there I took them out and then ran them through the hand grinder a couple of times until it looked like corn meal. I put the acorn meal in a plastic Tupperware container and then put it in the corner of the cooler. Momma's notes say that acorn flour doesn't last long before it goes bad. I'm hoping that keeping it cool will help it to last longer. That's a lot of work for a little return, I sure don't want to have to watch it go rancid and waste all of that time.

Until I can figure something else out I'll just have to save all of the acorns I can in their shell and hopefully that will help us to piece out the flour and cornmeal until we can get steady sources set up. The corn grinding has been going pretty good but anything that will make it last longer isn't something to turn your nose up at. The corn has to feed us and the animals. Luckily I discovered, kind of by accident, that popcorn grinds up just as well as dent corn so next season we'll double or triple the amount of popcorn we plant, we'll just have to plant it away from the other corn because Rand says they might cross pollinate wrong.

We had a bit of wind during the night so I wanted to check to see if some of those stubborn, out-of-reach apples had blown down finely. I was picking up some of the nasty ones to throw to the pigs when I realized the persimmons weren't changing colors, they were kind of stuck on that orange-ish stage they had been for a while if not going to mushy brown and falling from the tree. And that's when I realized that I had been looking at ripe persimmons starting about two weeks ago. I squawked so loud Rand said he heard me over in the rye field. I was just fit to be tied. I couldn't believe I'd made such a mistake.

I also saw some dried red sumac berries and realized that I had some lemon substitute, at least as far as flavoring goes. You don't use sumac for the acidity but for the flavor which is very sour. That is another problem that I've got on my list of I-don't-know-what-to-do list. Not knowing for sure which wild things are good to eat and which aren't. I know some of them like honeysuckle, red sumac, passion fruits, and dandelions but I need to learn the other things. Alicia said at one point that she'd teach me but that was months ago and I don't know when she would have the time now that she is going to have a baby. Last time I saw them Alicia, Laurabeth, and Missy were starting to show but I haven't seen them in … well, I can't even remember exactly when. It's been a while which is kind of strange.

I grabbed a couple of bushel baskets as I explained to Rand why I was stomping around and so bent out of shape. He helped me pick two bushels of persimmons and carry them to the house and then headed to the grain fields in the easement. We didn't plant much grain but what we did plant looks good except where the deer are eating it. It is so cold today that Rand decided to try and get one or two deer, field dress them then bring them back to the house and make some venison jerky. Well, he didn't get one or two … he got three, but that happened later in the day.

First I had to start work on the persimmons and to do that I had to turn the two bushel baskets of persimmons into pulp. That is easier said than done. Momma's notes say you can't really use a Foley food processor because you get too much of the seed in your pulp and it is ruined. What she said she did was take the really, really ripe persimmons (and boy were these ripe, the skins were so fragile they just about crushed each other in the bushel baskets) and wash them gently and then put a few of them at a time in one of those laundry bags you do delicates with; the wide mesh ones that you can zipper close; we also used those bags as "dunk bags" in Girl Scouts to dunk our dishes in boiling water that had a little bleach in them as a final rinse for sanitation. Once the fruits are in the bag you start twisting the top of the bag so that it crushes the persimmons as you tighten it and tighten it and tighten it some more. The pulp oozes out of the holes of the mesh into a bowl you have below your work area. As soon as you've squished it as much as you can, all you have left are skins and seeds and the pulp is in the bowl.

The pulp is very thick and gets very sticky as it dries so you need to clean as you go or it will make your job a whole lot more difficult.

The first thing I made was Persimmon Jam and the recipe I used was the one that called for the least amount of sugar I could manage. You mix two quarts of persimmon pulp, one cup of sugar, one cup of orange juice (I made it from TruOrange packets), and grated orange rind (which I have from Momma's spice rack) in a non-reactive saucepot and cook it until it thickens which is usually about twenty minutes. Then you can it in half-pint jars same way you would any other kind of jam. I wound up with six half-pint jars so I made a triple batch.

While the Persimmon Jam was processing I made Persimmon Jelly. Rand came in while I was in the middle of the mess and fixed himself some leftovers and fixed me a sandwich as well but it was guy-sized so it took me forever to finish it. Good thing that my jeans have a lot of room in them or I would have had to undo my belt.

For the jelly you take three cups of pulp and add three tablespoons of lemon juice and your pectin. Bring that to a boil and then add then add one cup of honey and bring it to a rolling boil for one minute. Put this in half pint jars and process it same as normal.

The last thing I did was can the remaining pulp plain. Without sugar it won't keep as long but this way I'll at least be able to keep it for a while and get some use out of the it. Tomorrow I'll have to find the time to get the pulp from the remaining persimmons. Next year I'll know what I am looking at and won't be so rushed or risk losing the fruit.

I heard a few shots while I was canning and figured Rand must be hunting. I heard another shot a few minutes later and didn't think too much of it, after all no one hits the target 100% of the time. I went on about my business and was cleaning up the kitchen having decided not to do any more canning since it was getting so cold. Boy, was I in for a reality check.

A few minutes later Rand, on Hatchet, came barreling into the yard. "Kiri! Babe! Help me get the wagon!"

OK, heart attack city but when I ran out of the house Rand was grinning like a complete loon so I figured whatever it was couldn't be too bad.

"I take it you hit what you were aiming at?"

"Sure did. Got us three of the best looking of the lot but since I don't know how long this cold spell is going to last we are going to need to get it all processed as soon as possible."

"Three … of what?!"

"Deer dear."

I rolled my eyes which only made Rand grin even bigger. I remember how long it took to process one deer and now he was talking about three! But truth be told it put a little kick in my step too. I like my veggies probably better than most folks but it is weird how much meat I ate without realizing it until we didn't have it to eat any more.

So, that's what I'm doing even now. It got to be too dark and cold outside (it is in the 30s out there, brrrrr) so I'm down to the two pressure canners on the princess. I'm so tired I can't stand it but I can truly say it is a good kind of tired. Rand has the meat hanging on the eaves of the carport outside of the summer kitchen. He also has a fire going out in one of the pits so we have something to see by … thank goodness for bright moonlight otherwise we'd be stumbling around in the dark. Inside we have the wind up lamps and some of the LEDs up and running but that still leaves lots of shadows in the corners of the room.

I found a use for the rancid olive oil, can't remember if I even mentioned that the oil that came out of the mattress hidey hole was rancid. I made Biblical lamps out of them with some of the lamp wicking that Momma had in her craft supplies. It doesn't give off great light but I figure if it was good enough for Jesus why not give it a try. The trick appears to be keeping the wick saturated at all times which means the oil level doesn't need to be high and the wick doesn't have to be long. It gives off a nice yellow light but it isn't enough to write by but it helps me find the pot holders and jar lifter without hitting something hot.

Oh bother, there goes that dog again. I'm going to have to wake Rand up and he just put his head down on the table.

 **November 25** **th** – Well, if I'm not tired today I don't know what tired is. I used to hear Daddy say that when I was growing up and I used to think it was really weird. Now I think I know exactly what he meant. This is the kind of tired that is given as a definition of what tired really means.

Last night was a total freak out. No wonder Woofer was acting so weird. My Lord, that thing could have taken any of us or any of the animals if it had gotten into the barn. Rand says if we are going to start seeing animals like that he is going to have to hurry up his plans for building a secure goat house and a secure pig house … I'm sure that isn't what you call them but basically that is what they are. The pigs are getting cold anyway so a little house that is all closed in would be a good idea anyway.

What did Rand have to shoot last night? A freaking jaguar … or leopard, but we think it is a jaguar since it had spots. It was either someone's illegal pet, from a zoo, or from a big cat rescue facility. I'm not sure it really matters where it came from. It was trying to drag off the last deer carcass when Rand stepped outside. And that lunatic Woofer tried to take it on. He has a slash on his hind end but it isn't deep and Woofer got in his own lick on the cat breaking its foreleg. Rand's head shot was a mercy killing at that point to put it down.

Mitch came over today just to say hello and when he saw the big cat he radioed for Mr. Henderson and some of the other men. When Bradley saw the big cat he said in his slow and plodding way, "Well … looks like I owe Brian an apology. I thought he was just having another one of his fits when he said he saw a jungle cat last week." Bradley reminds me of Eyeore the way he talks.

They all stood around goggling at it and talking long enough that I had to fix an extra pot of coffee. Rand is doing whatever it is you do with the pelt and he says that when it is ready we'll see about making something out of it. I'm trying to imagine what that might be. It makes me think of Tarzan movies and George of the Jungle.

I'm sure the story will be all over in no time. Mr. Henderson made a tongue in cheek comment about it adding to our mystique. No one asked me if I wanted to have any mystique. Frankly I've got enough problems without someone starting to tell tall tales about us.

I was so tired the only constructive thing that I managed to do, besides laundry and harvesting the cushaw squash, was make vegetable soup using some of the venison instead of beef. So far none of the venison that I've opened to use from the first time I canned it with Alicia has had any hair in it so I think I did a good job. I've tried really hard to be as clean this time but having to do some much in the near dark has me nervous.

The bucks were hung and bled and then Rand started cutting them up for me. I wiped them down really well so I'm pretty sure … but there is still that worry in the back of my head. It would be so embarrassing to have company over, use the meat, and have someone find hair in their food. Ugh.

Last night Rand, when he wasn't butchering the meat, was grinding some of it for me to brown and then can with some broth I made up. I also made a pretty good sized batch of turkey soup that I canned. I'll add "noodles" or rice or something like that when it comes time to serve it. Today I boiled the deer bones and the turkey bones to make broth with.

Man my back is killing me and it is so cold that Rand and I have a fire going in the wood stove in the bedroom. Even my ink is cold and thick as you can tell from my handwriting. It won't freeze tonight according to Rand but it won't be far from it. All the animals are snug in the barn including the pigs and goats so I think it is time that I got snug in my own bed.

 **November 26** **th** – Today is Sunday and I've tried to make it a day of rest, I really have, but life just doesn't want to cooperate. This day has been a day of revelations. First we heard that Julia had her baby. It is a little boy. And by little, I mean very little; he was barely five pounds when he came into the world. Julia was in labor most of Thanksgiving Day and the baby was born just shy of midnight.

Both Julia and her son are doing well. And if rumor is to be believed the baby really is a Harbinger from the looks and a particular birthmark on his little hind end. They named him Frederick Steven Harbinger … but he will be called Steven and not Freddie by all accounts. The same source said that Ron was strutting around like a rooster, crowing about how handsome his son was and what a trooper his wife was, and … well, I guess I'll have to see it to believe it.

I always wonder how news travels so fast around here. We don't have TV or broadcast radios or newspapers. I suppose Pastor Ken is partly the cause of how fast news travels. I'm sure Mr. Henderson has something to do with it too since he likes to keep his hand on the pulse of the community. There is also that bulletin board that Missy started up at the Trade Shack. But it just seems people run their mouths so much. If I had any personal and private information I'd make sure it stayed between Rand and I. Having people talk about me when I'm not around gives me the heebie jeebies.

The next revelation is that I won't be setting up a goat dating service after all. They didn't have any trouble at all, they just needed to be left alone so that nature could do its thing. Rand and I did get a little silly over it. Rand says he hopes the pigs get friendly too because that means that in the spring our "flocks" will begin to increase so that we can "grow our own" rather than be dependent on others for our domestic meat.

Then the next thing to happen came very late afternoon; the trains continue to run, sort of. Everything is so quiet these days with the lack of automation that the sounds of the train must have carried for miles and miles. Rand was getting ready to put the animals up and I was cleaning up where I had been cutting some pumpkins and persimmons to dry; all we could do was stare at one another.

"Did that stop as close as it sounded?" I asked.

"Hard to say but if I had to guess I would say that some of that train is stopped down at the end of CR49. You want me to go check?"

"Not really. It is almost dark and I … Rand, there aren't many that could get a train running. I'd feel more comfortable if … "

"Easy Babe. I want to get the animals put up first anyway. Oh, listen, it has started back up again. That's the cars pulling against each other."

The last revelation comes with a whole bunch of smaller (or bigger depending on your perspective) revelations. An hour after the train had come through Rand and I had eaten our dinner and I was cleaning while he finished putting the animals up for the night. I nearly dropped a glass when I heard Rand give out the piercing whistle call he does when he wants me to come running fast.

I wiped my hands on my apron and checked the pistol that is never off my hip lately and stepped out the front door. Rand was pounding the back of a dark-headed guy who was coughing pretty badly. Slowly the guy caught his breath and turned his face my direction. And I ran.

Ram was terribly thin. His pallor was scary. His normally olive complexion was almost grave-like and the bones of his face were very prominent. But it was his eyes that really drew my attention. They were the same snapping black as they ever were but somehow the "snap" was unhealthy and full of sadness and nightmares.

Rand and I drew Ram in, helped him to take off his backpack and got him settled in front of the fireplace. That married thing where you don't really have to talk to understand what the other one is saying comes in handy sometimes and Rand nodded at my questioning look. Rand stayed with Ram while I went to the kitchen and heated some broth and sliced a piece of bread. It only took a moment but by the time I got back Rand had a sorrowful look on his face.

"Hey Shorty, it's not that bad," Ram wheezed out. "I'm 500% better than I was. But if you don't mind I wouldn't say no to an invite to sleep on the sofa tonight."

We've learned a lot from Ram tonight, so much I can't really sleep though I'm going to climb into bed in a moment anyway after I check on Ram one more time. He was shot in some beachfront battle and the wound became infected. He probably would have managed a gotten better faster if he hadn't had a severe emotional upset at the same time. Sherri left him … she basically gave him a Dear John letter and went off with this other soldier that promised to take her back to her family. Ram said it took a while for him to decide whether he wanted to live or not. He is on furlough and is on his way to see whether Sherri ever made it home or not and if she did to get a "divorce" from her. Since the marriage was common law to begin with I'm not sure exactly how you would go about getting a divorce unless you just make an agreement or contract stating that they both agree they are no longer married. Ram wants to have something to turn in so that Sherri can't claim any special dispensation or benefits from the military if he dies before he remarries or whatever … he also wants to make sure that she wasn't pregnant with his child or something like that.

Tomorrow Rand is going to take him to the rendezvous point so that Ram can get on the train for the next leg of his journey. I just feel so bad for him; I never would have imagined that such a thing would happen. It makes me feel more and more blessed.


	63. Chapter 62

Chapter 62

 **November 27** **th** \- _"Fear not! He is mighty. Nothing and no one can stand against Him. Even the mountains bow before Him. He conquered the grave. He is the Author of salvation. He values His children more than all His other creation and will protect us all of our days."_

Pastor Ken preached on that one of the first services I went to around here. It is something that has stuck with me. But there are days when I have to keep reminding myself of those words. The days are so full it is a temption to just stop keeping track of them. And sometimes what the days are full of remind me of all I've lost. After that comes the worry about what I have left to lose.

Rand isn't home yet. I finally put all of the animals up and I've closed the last shutter and lowered the lost roll down door. That … that hurt. Every crank of the handle felt like I was tightening a vice around my heart. It has been a very cold day, the warm up that Rand expected hasn't arrived yet and it even rained off and on, though not hard. It is raining harder now that darkness has fallen.

We were up even earlier than normal despite how late we had been the night before. Rand got the bleary eyed animals moving and fed them and put them in their respective pens. I made pancakes for breakfast, mixing in some of the acorn meal and a little corn meal as well to make the flour go further. Both Rand and Ram ate well and as usual Ram had to make a comment. "Hey Shorty, you can still cook. I can remember though the first time you tried to make chocolate chip cookies. You couldn't reach the oven controls 'cause you were still in your chair and you hadn't learned to cook with your aunt's non-something or other flours. Instead of chocolate chunks it was carob. It was like trying to eat a Frisbee."

I told him everyone makes mistakes in the beginning and if he wanted to keep on eating what I can cook these days he better knock it off with the memories. Aunt Wilma used all of these non-gluten, non-corn flours and it takes some getting used to when you are trying to bake with them. I packed both men a bag lunch while giving them the eye letting them know that I better not hear any complaints.

Ram's lunch was for his long ride on the hospital train. Given some of the things that he said, not outright but I can read between the lines, rations are slim to none at some stops and he is so thin that it is probably contributing to his length of convalescence. I wished there had been time for Pastor Ken to take a look at him.

Rand was going to go see a couple of people he hadn't seen in a while, something about trading work, and then he was going to pay our respects at the Harbinger place. The last I saw of them was as they pulled out with the wagon.

I milked the cows and then went about the daily chores required to keep our place running smoothly. Lucky for me the garden is in the middle of production. Things start picking up again in January but here at the end of November and for most of December I'll have a little vacation except for improving the soil by turning under some compost.. I would have picked up some wood today but it was just too wet to be worth it. I picked up the stuff that had shed in the yard but that was it.

I had some time on my hands with the rain here and Rand gone so as a surprise I finally got around to making the soda pop I have been promising to make. I started by pulling out a couple of the empty two-liter soda bottles that I stored at the very top of one of the spare bedroom closets. They are bulky but light and getting them up and out of the way keeps me from going ballistic over the mess they make when they fall over like bowling pins. I had cleaned the bottles really well before we stored them but I cleaned and sterilized them again just to be safe.

While the plastic bottles dried I mixed on cup of sugar and one-quarter teaspoon of regular old yeast then shook it up really well to mix it evenly. I funneled this mixture into one of the now-dry plastic soda bottles and then filled the bottle half full with plain old room temperature water. To that disgusting looking mess I added a tablespoon of extract. I screwed the lid onto the bottle and rocked it back and forth to mix it all up. Then I filled the bottle the rest of the way up with water until there was an inch of head space and then rocked it some more until all the sugar dissolved. I used vanilla extract for a cream soda, something that Rand likes. I also made a bottle of Rootbeer flavored soda and orange flavored soda. If this works out I'll make other flavored sodas as I have a bunch of different extracts between Momma's leftovers (she bought the good stuff so it lasts years), Aunt Wilma who was a fiend for experimenting with natural this and natural that, and all the junk I found when we were cleaning out that eccentric house at the end.

The soda with be finished after it is left on the kitchen counter and gets "tight" the way a fresh bottle of pop would feel on the grocery store shelves. If this works out this may be going in people's Christmas baskets. It doesn't take that much yeast and it takes less sugar that doing a lot of baking does and I've got enough of those two-liter bottles to start my own landfill. Well, it's good to be hopeful about the future … isn't it?

Why is it we only seem to remember to pray this hard when something feels insurmountable? I'm praying that nothing has happened to Rand and that for some reason he has just had to find a place to hole up for the night. Maybe it was one of the mules. Maybe it's a wagon repair. It doesn't have to be for a bad reason … does it?

Am I asking for an answer to prayer or for a miracle?

I haven't been able to sit still. It wasn't until about three o'clock that I started to wonder where Rand was. As evening began to fall I became concerned but not worried. Everyone is late on occasion and I know how to take care of the animals now. They all mind me, even crazy Taz; all that is except for Hatchet who has become a pain in my backside. The mules are less stubborn than he is. Rand needs to ride him more but there isn't the time for that there used to be. The mules are work animals; Hatchet is a recreational animal built for speed rather than real labor. Rand feels bad for the horse. He says it must be like he is a Ferrari that only has back country dirt roads to travel down.

I put the animals into the barn, gave them whatever care was required, and then shut them in for the night. They all seemed content to come in out of the cold and damp. Then I closed most of the shutters on the house that stay open during the day for light and air. I left the shutters on the summer kitchen open and as it got to be pitch black outside with the clouds covering the moon, I added a lamp in the window as I tried to keep dinner warm.

But it got later and later. I blew out the lamp, closed the shutters, and put down the roll-downs except for the side door where I stayed in the kitchen. The stove grew as cold as the dinner and I finally knew he wasn't coming home. I am now upstairs, despite the bone numbing cold up here, listening to the radio. There isn't much noise out there but what there is depresses me and leads me to think about what we learned from Ram last night.

Ram said when he and his group arrived down in south Florida they found an already entrenched population of foreign troops. They had gotten so entrenched, Ram explained, because they had landed not as invaders but as a humanitarian aide group made up of an international coalition. And they did provide aide … in the beginning.

Someone was smart. Someone was very, very smart. They knew human nature, or at least nature of entitlement that exists in some areas of the world. The locals fell for their act hook, line, and sinker. Then the "humanitarian mission" began to morph into something more insidious. Turn in those dangerous guns for food and fuel. Identify the gang members and criminals to the local authorities (a puppet organization set up by the coalition). Then, be good citizens and turn in your neighbors for infractions of the new rules. You are getting paid to do so with extra points in your ration books.

Then the screws tighten even more. The fuel originally offered as part of the regular aide became reserved for only the most helpful and loyal of the friends of the coalition. Food assistance was no longer supplemental; soon food was only available through the coalition's "stores" and then only if you were on an official list. The only way to get on that list was as what amounted to an informant; and it was easy to be punitively removed.

Some people began to realize what was happening but only about half of them even cared. They gave their loyalty to whatever group gave them the most "stuff." It wasn't long after that however that the coalition began to overplay their hand and move too fast. They thought they had eradicated all resistance at this point when they really hadn't met any yet.

The invaders, on short supplies themselves, began to get stingy … and corrupt, bypassing the established system of distribution, stiffing the very people who secured their power base. They began to treat the locals like cattle and ration aid only to those that qualified as special friends … and the favoritism had no obvious rhyme or reason. It was both stick and carrot depending on the situation and the logic was lost on the masses who had envisioned the invaders as some type of kinder, gentler version of what they were used to before things fell apart. The elderly, children, and otherwise "non-contributing" members of the community suffered great deprivation at the hands of the coalition than they had before their arrival. Single, unattached females were treated like chattel and all females needed a strong or connected protector to prevent the unmentionable. The "redistribution of resources" moved from keeping the resources local to exporting them back to Venezuela, the base of operations for the coalition. Rebellion did occur on occasion, so did public executions after make believe trials.

Is the situation the military found when they arrived. Again, someone was very smart; they used the locals' fears of their situation becoming even worse to confuse them as to who were the legitimate authorities; better the devil you know. There were few open battles in the beginning. Once the military arrived however it didn't take long for things to start hopping.

Ram said it could have remained the way things were progressing … battle upon battle with no clear winner … if the coalition's supply lines hadn't been shut down, if US forces hadn't followed the supply lines back to a particular port in a particular country, back to a road that led from the port to a militarized base. The disruption by destruction that the long range US military wrought gave the ground troops in south Florida the ability and time to whittle the coalition down to the point they retreated. Then their ships were sunk off the coast by our Navy and Coast Guard reinforced by the military leaders now at least back in partial control of our national administration.

Even with the military coming in and trying to help restore order and repair infrastructure some people are still idiots. Not everyone was happy our side won. When the coalition pulled out abruptly some lost their status, and some of them their basic needs as their neighbors took revenge. They didn't want to realize they were already being shafted by the coalition as their privileges were being taken away.

That is how Ram came to be injured. His patrol was reclaiming equipment left behind during the enemy's retreat on a public beach when they were attacked by locals; not because they were after the equipment, but because they were trying to reinstall the coalition.

While Ram was in the mobile hospital, and nearly ready for duty again, was when he received the Dear John letter from Sherri. She didn't even have the nerve to tell Ram in person and she could have quite easily since she worked on that ward as a discharge clerk. He was devastated but it went even further. He learned that she had been having an affair with one of his best friends. The other men that had wives and girlfriends – they were a close knit social group – avoided him, too afraid his circumstance would become their own by association.

Reading between the lines I can tell that hurt Ram nearly as bad as Sherri leaving. Men who fight side by side have a unique bond. They become a close knit type of family. To have this relationship fall apart just like his marriage was too much. Stress flayed Ram's body leaving it open to infection the same way his pain had flayed his spirit leaving him open to depression. I think Ram would have been better off to stay with Rand and I for a while. He needs to remember he isn't alone so he won't do anything crazy since he doesn't feel like he has much to live for.

Gosh, just listen to what I've written. I sound like some of the psycho-babble I was forced to endure when I was in counseling. Ew. But … I recognize the feelings that Ram has all too well. And that's terrifying because it would be so easy for me to feel that way again if …

Stop it girl. Stopit, stopit, stopit! It doesn't have to be as bad as you are painting it.

 **November 28** **th** – Still no Rand. No anyone for that matter. By mid-morning after I'd taken care of the animals … it is still raining so I left them in the barn, but even there I could see their breath in the cold … I couldn't stand it anymore. I put on the best rain gear I had and trudged up to the end of our road to see if there was any news.

That was when I began to feel something strange is going on. There was no one at the patrol shack. Actually there wasn't a patrol shack. I stood there like a fool not quite believing what I was seeing … or actually what I wasn't seeing. The shack wasn't just gone; it was like it had never existed in the first place. No wood, no chairs, no table, no posts where they strung their horses, no latrine … no anything. The bare earth was covered with fallen leaves and pine straw in a haphazard and natural pattern all the way back to the road bed. Grass and branches were bent over and you couldn't really even see the small clearing where the shack had been. It was enough to make me doubt my sanity for a moment. Weird.

The rain was beating down but I could still smell smoke on the air. I shouldn't have been able to. It would require a pretty large fire to waft that kind of smell even in this weather. Or a close one. But the smell wasn't out of the south, the wind wasn't blowing the right way for that. No, the smell was coming out of the NE with the wind and the only large structures close enough were already dilapidated and in disuse. There hadn't been any lightening in the rain and I saw no smoke off in that direction, certainly hadn't seen or smelled anything like that yesterday.

Then I saw … it … on the other side of the road, a little north of my position. I thought it was just some debris at first but the closer I got the more I had to cover my mouth and nose. It was raining hard but the vultures were already at it. I braced myself and took hold of my stomach with both hands. I was praying so hard sweat was popping out on my upper lip despite the cold. When I got there I still wasn't as prepared as I needed to be. It wasn't Rand. It wasn't Ram. It wasn't anyone that I knew well though something told me I'd seen them someplace before. The other body, the one half in and half out of the ditch all but hidden by the tall brown grass I didn't recognize at all … what little was left to recognize. The turkey vultures had had several hours to do what turkey vultures do. This was where the smoky smell had come from. There was no other fire damage visible so the bodies had been dumped there but for what reason I can't even guess. Maybe they fell off of a charnel wagon.

As soon as I thought about it I faded back into the over grown right of way avoiding the water-filled ditches as much as possible. I ghosted down to Momma O's place. It took a bit of time, trying not to get any wetter than necessary, but once I got there I crossed the road and stood in the winter remnants of a trellis full of confederate jasmine vines. I looked at the wide front porch. The screen door hung by a single hinge and the front door stood wide open. The house reminded me of a woman caught mid-scream. No one was around. What was worse was neither were the animals. There was a single dead chicken laying under the azalea bushes; not even a coyote or vulture had found it yet.

I felt guilty wandering through the house without permission but I had to know. The front parlor showed nothing except for the open doorway but I did find a few clues on my tour. There was an over turned table in the upstairs hallway. One of the bedroom doors, that I presume was Paul and Sadie's based on décor and contents, was busted in at the latch. Down in the kitchen a pot of grits lay in a congealed mess on the floor. Remembering all the cowboy movies I watched with Daddy I checked the stove and the fire didn't have a spark of life left in it. Whatever happened occurred quite some time before I got there.

I shut up the house against the weather and predators (human and animal) and tried to decide what to do. It was a trek to the Henderson ranch on foot and there were no other close neighbors for me to check on. I headed back to the house but cut across the woods rather than walk down the grass at our main gate any more.

I stumbled through a few more hours in the day doing what chores around the house I could while in a half daze; nothing too dangerous or I would have wound up hurting myself or breaking something most likely. Finally I just gave up and sat down and used my head for something besides a hat rack.

I'm going out after it gets dark. I'll leave a note for Rand just in case he comes back while I'm gone. I'll leave a stash for him in the shed hidey-hole under the bench in there like we've talked about doing and slide the door pole above the inside of the shed door. It blends in and isn't visible over the metal lip that is there. You have to put your hand up in the track to locate it. It is still raining and I hope that will help hide me from whatever … or whoever … is driving the weirdness.

I'm going to go see about the Crenshaws. I'd go to Mr. Henderson but I don't want to get shot at if I can avoid it and something must be going on for things to be a screwy as they are. I've got my bag packed, my weapons and extra magazines loaded, and a cover for the rifle. Rand had his shotgun with him so I've brought a bag of shells for him just in case. And I've prayed. I'm going to rest for a few hours until full dark, take care of the animals, and then head out. Just please God, no more bodies.


	64. Chapter 63

Chapter 63

 **December 4** **th** – Haven't written for a few days. I was too busy and too overwhelmed by everything to stop and think about it before now. When I caught myself talking to the brussel sprouts out in the garden I realized it was time to step back and get some perspective before I really jumped the tracks.

The night of the 28th … yeah, just looked at my journal and it was the 28th … that night I put on dark clothes that made me look like a cross between a Goth wannabe and that old blonde actress in that movie _Private Benjamin_ when she is marching through the mud and muck. Didn't feel like much of a comedy though; felt more like I had stepped into some whacked out, LSD laced version of _Alice in Wonderland_.

I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't some PTSD dream and that I was really doing what I was doing. If I had only known how those feelings would double up as the night wore on I don't know if I would have had the courage to start. I think that is why, if precognition really exists, God doesn't give it to too many people. If people always knew what was coming down the pike they'd probably decide to check out early rather than face it.

All the pack and gear was a little heavy but wouldn't have been as bad if I hadn't had to put rain gear on top of everything else, winter gear to keep myself from freezing, and slogging through puddles and wet ground that felt like quicksand every few steps. I'd like to record for posterity how many trees and bushes I walked into because of the dark but I lost count. At least I wasn't running at that point and I only fell down a few times, not counting the bath I took in that ditch that I see in the dark.

The summer and autumn had given all the greenery time to try and take over the world. It was much more difficult to reach the Crenshaws by going across fields than it had the last time I had attempted this with Alicia. I think I could have dealt with the miserable weather and lack of light if it wasn't complicated by the fact that the rain had my hearing all out of whack on top of it. I finally had to take the poncho off my head and just deal with the soaking. The hoodie took away what peripheral vision I had and the rain drops felt like fingernails against my eardrums. The dirty USF Bulls baseball cap I wore kept the water out of my eyes for the most part or I would have been blind as well as nearly deaf.

I learned to hike more carefully but it make for slower going and it was after midnight before I made it to the Crenshaw's place. I knew right away that something terrible had happened. The Winston place was burned to the ground. A couple of the floor joists … I think they were the floor joists … were still warm to the touch and the rubble definitely smelled icky enough that the damage wasn't that old.

I only took a few steps and tripped over what I thought was a piece of wood I hadn't seen. That was my first step down the rabbit hole. As soon as I got a good look at what I had tripped over I realized God had decided not to answer my prayer. I wasn't sure who it was at first, except that it was a female, most of the anatomy was in the right spots. The one hank of hair left is what identified the poor woman. Mostly it was an unfortunate shade of gray from the scalp but on the ends was about six inches of false blonde from the last dye job Mrs. Winston had.

Someone had tried to cover her up and put stones at the four corners of the plastic but the wind had ripped it loose from its moorings and the rain beat down without mercy on what was left of the poor woman. I couldn't see her family leaving her exposed like this, not even for a short while. I search around for other bodies but didn't see any. I had a gut sick feeling.

I was much more cautious as I approached Clyde's house. The baby's bed was turned on its side and there was a window busted out in there. Other than that there was no other damage. I crossed over to Uncle George's place. No one was home. Missy's place was empty too. I went out to the barn … no animals. Things began to freak me the heck out. I checked all of the houses up and down the farm road and nothing. No people, no animals, damage in a few houses but nothing major, one brown smear on the bedroom door in one location and a puddle of brown in another. The rain continued to fall and I was tempted to let some tears fall as well.

I decided to check the Trading Shack and thank God that I did but I still nearly wet myself when that bird shot blew out the window I had just past in front of.

"Oh my God … OhmyGod … Kiri … please, please, please, I didn't hit you did I?!"

"Not for freaking lack of trying! Dang it Missy, give me a blasted heart attack next time! And if I've messed myself you are going to give me something out of the supplies for free!"

Then we fell on each other crying and laughing at the same time. A pain racked voice from the hallway said, "If y'all are done now I've started bleeding again and could use a little tender care."

Bill is in pretty bad shape. He took what he calls an in and out in the shoulder and he bled quite a bit from a head wound. The attackers thought he was dead and didn't check him over too well. He and Missy had been over in the Shack cleaning up from a day of heavy trading when their nightmare started.

They attacked almost every home on the road simultaneously. The noise of the rain gave them the advantage over most everyone. The fact that they went after the kids first had most families giving up without a fight. They'd go in, take a kid, hold them at gun point and the rest went pretty much like you would expect it would. If a house didn't have kids they would either use a pregnant woman, someone else's kid, or an elderly person to force compliance. They hit in the dark. First they took the people away and then they came back for the animals.

"How is it that you don't know what has happened?"

"I came over here because Rand hasn't been home in two days. You remember my foster brother Ram? He had stopped by and he was in bad shape after south Florida so Rand was taking him back to the train where it had stopped over near old downtown area then he was supposed to go to the Harbingers and … and he never came home."

"And you haven't seen anyone else?"

"No! I mean, not living. There were two burned bodies dumped not too far from our front gate and then … then I think it is Mrs. Winston across the road."

"Yeah, they didn't realize she was crazy when they tried to use her and … well, the inevitable occurred as you can imagine. You haven't seen anyone else? No one at all?"

"Isn't that what I just said?!"

"Hey, don't yell at Missy she's just … "

"Well so am I so lay off. I don't know why they missed our place. Do you have any idea where they took folks?"

"Maybe."

"What do you mean 'maybe?' You either you do or you don't."

"Kiri, take it easy. Missy and I have been holed up here … "

"Bill, enough with the explanations. Just spit it out for Pete's sake."

"They were dressed in camou but nothing standard issue that I used to see come through. Not your average hunter's camouflage either. The color of the green … if you want the truth I saw some of that out of the jungles of South America but … "

"Venezuela … could you tell …"

"How the … Kiri, they were speaking Spanish or something close to it."

"Castellano … that's what they call it. Most of the words are the same, they just sound like they are in a different dialect."

"That's right, you speak Spanish."

"Get off it Missy. Ram was talking about what had gone on down in south Florida. I guess those creeps didn't give up after all. They are being backed by the … "

"Russians," Bill said finishing my sentence for me.

"Yeah. Guess that didn't take much of a brain drain to figure that out."

"No. And it explains some of the Anglo-looking people them."

"So, where do you 'maybe' think they've taken everyone?"

"Hoss said … "

"Whoa, back up. You've seen Hoss?"

"Yeah. He was at his relative's place and was cutting through and stopped by the Shack for a second and mentioned he was heading back to Henderson's. He said tomorrow he might have a little news to trade because there had been a transmission that there was some type of fight going on at the old military outpost, the one over between River Road and the old GoldKist processing plant on US90."

"Well, that gives me a place to start."

"That gives you … oh no you don't girl."

I remember turning and giving Bill a look. There aren't too many people that dared to tell me no like that before things went to heck in a hand basket. Bill found out there was only one or two I tolerate it from these days … and he wasn't one of them.

Bill blinked first when Missy hitched up her breath like she was going to cry. I looked at her and said, "You don't really expect me to baby sit the two of you do you? You're both adults and neither one of you stood up to your Daddy when he was being so rough on Rand."

"But … "

"Missy, under any other circumstances … but not this, you can't ask me to sit around and not try and find out what has happened to Rand."

"It isn't about anyone for you is it?"

"You want to get nasty Missy I can and with a clear conscience. No, right here right now it isn't about anybody else. I owe Rand my loyalty, my love, my life, and likely my sanity. Right now he is all I care about. You want to hold that against then go right ahead. Does that make me hard? Maybe. After that comes Momma O … and after that Mick and Tommy and Pastor Ken. Those folks have given me the most acceptance for who I am and I don't intend just sitting around waiting for someone else to …"

Bill broke in, "Kiri, Missy is awful close to her due date and I'm next to useless. If something happens to me … "

"Then find a hole for you two and crawl in. When I find out what is going on I'll be back or I'll send some help or something. If you need some food or water I'll … "

Missy, rather coldly said, "No. We can take care of it."

Bill, trying not to get in the middle of a cat fight said, "Kiri, this isn't … Girl, Rand wouldn't want you to … Nothing I say is going to change your mind is it?"

Feeling a little bad for the way things were going despite what I had said I told him, "Bill, would you let someone or something stop you finding out about Missy? Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't feel that same kind of need. I'm not a frilly girly-girl. I'm not even a normal kind of girl. I'm me … rough, not able to put up with people much, scarred in a lot of ways. But Rand stood by me, from the very beginning. He's never asked me to be anyone and anything else than what I am. He … he …"

I guess Missy must have thawed a bit because she put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed and it let me continue. "He is the reason why I get up in the morning and the reason why I can sleep at night. The reason why I even bother trying to … maybe I shouldn't put that kind of burden on him, maybe if … If I was going to have a baby or there was a kid or something I could handle things if … Look, I have to know. I can't not try. I'm not asking you to understand. I don't really care if anyone understands. It's just the way it is for me."

I finally looked back at the two of them and it was like they had seen me for the first time all the way. It wasn't a real comfortable feeling so I got up and grabbed the bucket they were using for water and went outside and filled it from the water barrel and filled up my own canteen at the same time. When I came back in I was back in control and had my attitude wrapped around me like Kevlar. "You have food or do you need anything else?"

"We'll be fine. Stay out of trouble if you can Kiri. Whatever has happened I know Rand wouldn't want you walking to your death with wide open arms."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. I'm not going looking for it, that's not the plan. I want a chance at my happily ever after and I'm not about to let some jerks cut me out of it."

There was a few more things said, mostly Bill giving me tips on strategy in case I needed it, then I was off. There were only a couple of hours until daylight and I wasn't going to make it on foot the miles I needed to travel before it arrived.

Live Oak is like a spider's web, lots of major roads radiate out from the city center. One of those roads is CR136. The Crenshaw's place is on a road off of CR136. The county road then runs SW until it hits the city center and then keeps going slowly changing to a due east direction before running smack into the southern end of River Road. That was a haul to walk, almost made me wish that I'd ridden Hatchet … almost.

It was mid morning and I was so tired of weaving and dodging to stay out of sight that by the time I got to the intersection I knew I needed to rest or I was going to be useless. It hadn't stopped raining either. My feet were soaked and so was the rest of me. There was an old house set back from the road and I went in. The house had been salvaged over so many times that it wasn't much more than a frame in some places but the roof was relatively intact and kept me out of the rain. There was an old metal bed with some junk piled around it and I crawled under it like a vampire to get out of what daylight there was so that I could rest and then sneak in under cover of darkness.

And boy did I sleep. I woke with a start when something squeaked in my ear. Thank you Lord for the rain because I made enough noise to draw every baddie within a mile with all my scrabbling to get out from under there. Rats, I so do not like them. I sure as heck don't like them squeak at me like an alarm clock but what happened next was too providential for me to curse them completely.

I pulled myself together, grabbed my gear (after checking it for hitch hikers) and then took off in the direction that would bring me behind the old GoldKist plant where who knows how many chickens used to meet their fate. I was no more than five buildings away when boots on a run had me ducking for cover. Men, men with guns, big guns were going from building to building. I guess they were looking for stragglers they might have missed the first go around. They didn't look too happy to be out in the cold, wet weather. The men that were higher in rank, I presume they were anyway because they were standing around telling the rest of them what to do, were shouting, "¡Muévale los perros! Estamos tarde y el comandante flay le si hay más retardos."

Sounded like things weren't moving to someone's timetable. Fine by me, I decided to cause them a few more delays and I got my first chance when one of them men snuck off to take a potty break. What is it with guys anyway? They get so involved with marking their territory that a brass band could march up behind them and they wouldn't notice. As far as I know the guy is still down under the manhole plate where I dumped him after I caught him on the back of the head with a piece of convenient tree branch wet and heavy from all of the rain. There wasn't any water down there so I expect it was an electric junction or something.

What I didn't dump down in there was his gun and ammo belt and the bandolier of grenades he had been wearing. The grenades looked like dark green apples with pull rings. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do with them but I figured they would come in handy. This next part is something I'm not too proud of and figure I'll have to answer for some day.

I've gotten pretty good at plinking with the Mark III. I can hit the bullseye at fifty yards. I don't know how that compares to what really passes for marksmanship but Rand likes it and I've hit the bullseye at nearly 70 yards, but not farther. I don't know if that is the limit of the gun or what but I only needed to get 60 yards and I wasn't aiming at a little bitty bullseye but at a man in the back of a truck holding one of those military radio gizmo thingies. I don't know what planet these guys come from but no one with any brains just sits in the bed of a pick up in the middle of a war … and I had declared this to be a war. He was just leaning back in the truck like he didn't have a care in the world, arms spread wide, mouth open to catch the rain.

I told myself, "You're just plinking cans, aim for the radio and cut them off."

I got the radio … and the guy wearing the radio and God sent a clap of thunder to cover the shot. I had moved and found fresh cover before the group of twelve … make that ten … men still didn't realize anything was amiss. I guess they had had it so easy up to that point that they had gotten careless. I decided not to push my luck and ran for it. No one saw me or at least no one shouted, "Hey, look, there's a girl … let's get her."

It started to rain harder and I ducked under some bushes to catch my breath. The extra gear from the guy I dumped down the hole weighed me down and I was really tempted to leave it behind. I'm glad I sucked it up and brought it with me, it came in handy.

I didn't have any more trouble – sometimes you just know your guardian angel is working overtime – and followed River Road up to for a while and then cut behind where I knew the old outpost was supposed to be. I nearly puked when I saw what was happening; I would have puked if I had known it all.

It looked like one of those WW2 internment camps from those documentaries you used to be able to watch on the Military Channel. Tall fences where people were mashed together like sardines. Men in one area, women in another, young children separated out into a third. They didn't need to have too many guns on the adults because they had a lot trained on the children. Then I saw some of the rough men dragging a young girl out of the crowd of women. The women tried to hold onto her but they were punched and butt stroked with rifles and then someone shot a gun into the crowd of young children … they all ran screaming in different directions but it didn't look like any of them had been hit, at least not that time.

I knew I didn't have much time so I ran around the compound through the overgrowth that was there. They hadn't even had time to clear the land where it had grown back from the last trimming it had been given. I didn't even stop to think. It was just a stupid portable outside the main compound fences, paper thin walls, two doors, a few blackened windows. The day had grown dark earlier than normal because of the weather and I took advantage of it. I ran into the door on the opposite they were going to enter. My brain was going nothing to ninety in less than five seconds. For some reason Rambo got stuck in my head and I knew what I was going to do.

Two men drug the young girl into the portable slamming the door behind them, I came out from where the door closed and using one of Daddy's knives out of his collection I … I stepped up behind them and did what I thought was necessary. The girl they had thrown on the stained mattress just laid there crying, waiting, unaware that I had taken care of her current problem. I turned quickly and rigged a grenade on the chain lock that was on the door then I turned to find the girl staring at the two men. I grabbed her and ran to the door I had come in, took a quick peak hearing the other men laughing on the other side of the building, and then drug the kid into the thick bushes and kept going even after the explosion that signified that someone had become impatient for their turn.

An old, overturned bread truck became our refuge and that is when I realized who the girl was … Sadie. She fell on me and was crying and I don't know what all but I couldn't seem to find it in me to be kind. I slapped her to get her to stop and said, "I need to know as much as you can tell me about how things work here. We haven't got much time. That explosion is going to be like stirring a hornet's nest with a sugar bush stick."

She'd cried snot all over her face and I handed her a bandana as she told me basically the same kind of story that Missy and Bill had. The men had caught Hannah as she gathered eggs and used her to force the rest of the household into compliance. Paul had tried to lock her into their bedroom but they broke down the door and dragged her downstairs. As soon as they had been herded to the pins the little kids and babies had been taken away and the men and women separated. I asked her if she had seen Rand and she said no but that it didn't mean anything because she had only seen Paul and his dad a couple of times since they had been separated; but she also said that some of the men that had fought in the beginning were taken away and you could hear shots. None of those men came back.

I told her I was going to have to leave her there and she started to panic but I told her she really didn't want to go where I was going and that Hannah, Paul, and his family needed her to stay safe, they were going to need her when this was all over with. I felt funny when I said it, like it was true in a way that I wasn't going to like.

I left her my extra canteen and some food. That helped lighten my load a little bit but I didn't bother leaving a gun after she told me she didn't know how to shoot one because her dad said only loose women handled guns. Well, I was about to get as loose as her dad probably fantasized about. She caught me off guard when she hugged me as I was leaving and I felt driven to tell her to stay hidden here for as long as she could but if she had to move, to do it carefully and to stay out of sight and out of the way.

It was back to the dark cold rain and the sounds of the enemy running around like chickens with their heads cut off. As soon as I thought that I wondered where the command center was for the compound. At the time I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the information but, just like the grenades, I thought it would be useful.

I scrambled around to the other side of the compound as quickly as I could. All the activity was on the side where I had blown up the portable and I wondered if I had left Sadie in the wrong place but it was too late to go back and change it. I refocused and started looking at the mess the enemy had made. They had tents galore set up and I could see where the train had been derailed and a couple of the cars were lying on their sides. That would have been the explosions reported by Henderson's men. I also so a pile of dead soldiers stacked some ways off. The rain was keeping the predators away for the time being.

I saw a bunch of men packed into one tent and figured it was the mess hall. Some men were being directed at filling sand bags and they were using these to build makeshift walls around some of the free standing tents. One looked a little bit like a MASH unit and another one looked like a small radio station. The radio station was the focus of a bunch of arguing. I couldn't see what was going on in any of the other tents because the lamp light didn't penetrate far enough but none of them looked like there was a lamp on inside of those tents either so they might have been sleeping quarters. I didn't see anything that looked like a command station. I guess the movies make it seem like it is so easy to figure everything out.

I was trying to think so hard that he got the jump on me before I even realized it. I was kicking and fighting and then got flipped over on my stomach which knocked the wind out of me despite the hard hand across my mouth.

In my ear I heard, "Ow! Don't bite! Will you stop it! Blast it! Ram was right, you're as mean as a cottonmouth when you get cornered!"

I stopped fighting and as soon as I did the man let up and I squirmed out of his control and pulled the Mark III and put my back to a tree and aimed.

"My gawd girl. Point that thing someplace else. And be careful of them grenades you're swinging around, you want to blow us all up? By the way, now that I've spotted you I assume that was your doing over there."

It took me a second then I recognized the guy. He'd been with Ram that first time, at the church service.

"You don't remember my name do you? It's Duncan … Pepper Duncan. No, don't ask, my dad was drunk at the time. Have you seen him? Ram I mean."

"Not for a couple of days. My husband never came home from bringing Ram to the train."

"Rand. That's your husband's name. I heard about him too. Ram said he was the only guy crazy enough to put up with you."

"If you are done insulting me, would you might telling me what is going on and where is everybody else?"

"I'll tell you if you point that thing … fine, have it your way. There isn't an 'everybody' any more. You're dead or your behind the fence."

"You're not behind the fence."

"No. No I'm not."

"And why would that be?"

"Because if you'll notice I don't look like I'm much of a threat now does it?"

I looked at the direction he was pointing. I blinked and then blinked some more. Pepper was missing the foot on one leg and from the knee down on the other.

"Looks can be deceiving obviously. You didn't have any trouble sneaking up on me and taking me down."

I surprised him. His mouth hung open and then he grinned. "You're all right. Look, I don't know what you are thinking about but there are too many of them. Ram said you were crazy, he never said you were suicidal."

"I'm neither, Ram is a big fat pain in the backside and I'm going to kick his for telling my business all over the place. As for what I was doing I was wondering where the command center is for this place."

"Hasn't got one. I don't think this is the command group. I think this may just be the advance guard or something like that. They were to come in, soften up the place, and then get it ready for the main body to arrive. They'll either use those people as cannon fodder or as collateral. Our guys aren't going to want to massacre our own, not even to get to the enemy. Bad for morale and we got enough of those problems already."

"OK, if what you say is true then we don't have that much time."

"Much time for what?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out. Do you know if the military are sending troops in here?"

"They got the report. I know that for a fact as I was the one that sent it. What they do with that information is anyone's guess. Depends on what resources we have in the area and how many and how big a threat they consider this incursion. They've let other ones go unchallenged."

"What?!"

"For cripes sake, keep your voice down. We've had some Asian incursions on the West Coast but there wasn't much left over there worth anything anyway. The Canadians are coming across the border for food and fuel too but we've formed a sort of coalition with them so local authorities turn a blind eye to the salvaging as long as that is all it is … no taking stuff that already has legal owners. The Republic has held firm on the southern border with surprising tenacity now that they are allowed to use whatever force is deemed necessary. That's why we are now seeing incursions by water."

"You mean invasions."

"Call them incursions; you'll stay out of trouble that way."

"Call it like it is instead of some stupid political correctness and you might be able to correct the problem sooner."

"Yeah, yeah … that's above my pay grade. I've got my own problems to worry about right now sweetheart."

"Well, don't look at me, I've spent my time in a wheelchair. At least what you've still got obeys the commands your brain sends them."

I'd surprised him again and he gave a quiet chuckle and shook his head. "Fine. Let me tell you what I've been thinking while I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself. You see that radio tent? Something is wrong. They've been working on it for over 24 hours straight and that big guy, the one that looks like Dolph Lundgren … "

"Who?"

"Never mind, the big blonde … the Russian … he's been getting angrier and angrier and about an hour ago he put a bullet in some guy's head and bellowed out something like, "¡Tonto incompetente!"

"That means 'incompetent fool' if you are pronouncing it correctly."

"You speak Spanish?"

"Well enough and it is pretty clear that he was calling the guy incompetent."

"Yeah, even I could figure that one out. Anyway, everyone is getting all nervous and bent. Look … see those men there? The Anglos? They're the Russians, or at least Eastern Europeans. See how they are standing off and away from the rest of the men?"

"The Venezuelans?"

"Ram told you. Yeah, the Venezuelans. Even before the pandemic got bad the Russians had built bases of operation in Venezuela. Long political story that I ain't going into. It simply was and when the pandemic had the kaka hitting the twirling blades old grudges started looking like they could be settled. And there is a worldwide resource grab going on. China is too busy claiming the rest of Asia and most of Africa right now, or trying to claim it. Russia has decided to take the Americas. But they have to keep most of their forces in the motherland to fight off China stepping into their territory as well. And both countries are trying to claim the oil reserves of the Middle East, but China needs it worse."

"So, Venezuela to make up the difference and to give them some manpower."

"Yeah, but I don't think things are going near as well as either country expected. Even little, nothing countries had access to suitcase sized dirty bombs before the pandemic and both Russia and China got pounded and pounded hard. Venezuela saw that and has gotten a little big for her britches and the Russians gave them a couple of nasty blackeyes to remind them who's boss. It's made for poor coalition relations. But the Russians are the brains, the experience, and they're the ones with the equipment … there is no way that Venezuela could have gotten this far without help, a lot of it. I'm thinking that they might just be the brains of the operation here as well. If someone could cut the head of the snake off … Who knows?"

"So how do we do it?"

"How do we? Are you crazy? I told you, this was all just conjecture!"

"Conjecture or not it is the only plan I've got. The problem as I see it is that whatever it is it has to be big enough to really disrupt things or they are going to take it out on the little kids and women just because that looks like the kind of people they are. Where are they getting their fuel for the trucks and jeeps?"

"You're nuts! Grade A certifiable!"

"Yeah, yeah. I thought you told me Ram warned you about that. Do you know where their fuel is?"

"It's over there. No, over there, that small tanker. The way they monitory that thing I'm thinking they don't have much and are waiting resupply."

"They didn't get any when they attacked you guys?"

"We were a hospital train … emphasis on the train. We weren't carrying fuel, we were running coal."

"Like a … a choo-choo train?"

"Yeah smart aleck, like a choo-choo train. Coal is about all there is going these days for large transportation activities."

"I just thought of something. Where are the animals?"

"If you mean the ones their patrols have been bringing in, they are over at the processing plant."

"So that means that there isn't just one group but two."

"More. You've got all the small patrols that are out trying to round up stragglers."

"Great. Do you know how big the force is at the processing plant?"

"Not big, Maybe a quarter of what there is here."

"As heavily armed?"

"Yeah. No. Heck, I don't know … no, I don't think so, not really. They might have one mounted machine gun to the six that are here. I know there is another six in the field for sure but there may be more than that."

"Crap, but not as crappy as it could be. I can't take care of the animals but … "

"But what?"

"What happens if you put a bullet into a propane tank?"

"What?!"

"What happens if you shoot a bullet into a propane tank?"

"A big fat boom."

"So the bigger the propane tank the bigger the boom?"

"Theoretically? Yeah, I guess. What are you cooking up in your twisted little brain."

"Legless man or not, I'm going to kick you if you don't knock it off. See that messhall?"

"Darling, I've been smelling the … oh. Holy … And it's right in the middle … Forget it, you aren't going to hit it with that little thing you've got. And blowing a propane tank isn't as easy as I just made it out to be."

"I don't intend on hitting it with this little thing, "I said, referring to my .22 rifle. "I'm going to hit it with this."

"Little girl, that is a Kalashnikov. Have you ever shot something like that?"

"Sort a. But they are all just point-and-shoot so stop acting like I talking about landing a 747."

"Kiri, I'm not joking. If you don't hold something that powerful correctly you could get hurt. I'd do it but my legs aren't the only things … I took some shrapnel to my eyes and my far vision is shot, no pun intended."

"Look, I don't know what else to do. I can't just sit here and wait for whatever is going to happen. If you have any better ideas sing out. And what did you mean about the tanks not going boom?"

Pepper got real serious and then said, "I didn't say they wouldn't, just that it was harder than you would think. How good are you with the pistol?"

"I can hit the bullseye consistently at 50 yards."

"Well, this isn't fifty yards, this is almost 250 yards. And you are going to need a clear shot."

Looking around I said. "I'll climb a tree."

"Girl, it doesn't work that way. The kick will knock you out of the tree if you aren't ready for it and …"

"Stop telling me why it won't work and help me to figure out a way it will!"

After a pause he said, "Over in those trees is a culvert. It will get you closer for sure. It might also get you are clearer shot. The problem is going to be that gun going off in an enclosed area. If you don't have some ear protection you'll lose your hearing. You might lose it anyway at least for a time just from the percussion. And you are going to be caught. If someone sees you you'll be as good as dead. You are also going to need to hit it near where the cookfire is which is going to make you angle even more difficult. The bullet hitting the tank isn't really going to do much more than release the gas from pressure, you are going to need to make sure that fire gets to that gas as it is being released."

He went one for a few minutes more but I was focused on getting into the culvert and what I could do after I did what I wanted to do which was make the big tank explode.

(later)

I had to stop and check on things and get some new ink. Everything is so quiet this time of night. It reminds me of how quiet and muffled everything was in the culvert. I had shoved some tissue in my ears, wrapped a bandana around them and then pulled my knit cap down over that. Not the best protection by any stretch. I had the perfect angle from a less than perfect position. I was practically lying in the open, only hidden by some scruffy little turkey oak saplings growing up through the cracked cement and clay mud.

Pepper was right, this was a completely different kind of shooting. The long range stuff was outside my talent, but I didn't see where I had much choice than to at least try. And I wasn't trying to hit a squirrel's eye … I was aiming at a big white tank that looked as big as a hippopotamus' rear end … roughly the same shape too for that matter.

The deal was to pray for God to guide the bullet, aim, shoot and then pray the entire time that the tank actually exploded.

I was shaking so bad that I had to calm myself down and when I finally did it the results were more spectacular than I could have ever imagined. The fireball was huge. The cooks had been making food as fast as they were serving it. The entire mess hall tent and everyone in it was just … gone. The radio tent and everyone in there as well. Further out a watch tower had two of its upright legs damaged and it collapsed into the men's fenced in area. Chaos ensued.

I think what happened was that the guns of the guards were taken and were used to take more guns for other guards. I could see the big Russian running out of a tent that had only partially escaped the blast. I helped the chaos along by rolling a grenade his direction. I thought at the time he was done for. I was wrong.

I'm not even going to write about what happened over the next hours. I don't even want to think about it. They said it was war. OK, it was war. That doesn't mean that there aren't still rules. I know "fair fight" is an oxymoron. I know it was me or them, us or them … but I don't know if that makes any of that right, or if it is something I'm just going to have to live with and let God sort it out when he gets to be inclined.

Some of the enemy men weren't even men … they were younger than I am. Just kids. Some of them … some of them hardly big enough to carry the guns they had in their hands. Why does the world do this? No … why do people do this? Life is hard enough as it is, why do they have to make it worse? And why would these boys join in? Was there no other option open to them? I guess those are questions I'll never have an answer for. It's bad enough I was faced with the questions to begin with.

Sheer desperation and determination won the day, but not without casualties. Momma O had a heart attack the first day of the internment. I guess Sadie had been too shook up to tell me. She's not dead, but … no one seems to think she'll pull through this time. Ron Harbinger's aunt was killed in the fighting. Julia is bad sick, she starting bleeding after she was beaten and despite first rate care … or as first rate as we have around here … she isn't out of the woods yet. Paul's dad was shot but will live; he'll walk with a limp for the rest of his life but he'll live. I thought Paul was going to break down and cry when I told him where I had left Sadie. Hannah refused to leave Ms. DeLois' side. She has a bruised confused look around her eyes and I'm afraid to ask why.

Mr. Henderson has a broken leg … shin, not thigh. Several of his men are dead but he's vowed to continue looking after their families. Mr. Winston, Julia's brother, and Ron's Aunt Buzzy are at the Harbinger place. They buried old Mrs. Harbinger beside her husband; she just wasn't up for the stress. Pastor Ken is one of the walking wounded. He's up, but is just as often down. There are too many wounded. I heard one woman moan, "What next? Locusts?!" That is pretty much my feelings at the moment.

I looked, begged people I recognized for some word of Rand. Nothing. Finally some of the least wounded … I fell into that category at the time … decided it was time to take on the ones that were barricaded in at the processing plant, before they got any reinforcements. It wasn't much of a battle, those men tried to throw down their guns and surrender. They weren't given the option. That's something else I'll have to live with since it isn't exactly something you can undo.

But that's where I found him. I thought at first … well, never mind what I thought. They'd had some fun with him. I'd seen him after a fight before but never anything like this. Ram, wheezing his way through the explanation, said they'd been caught almost as soon as they had been hit as they were crossing CR129 as they were travelling west on US90. Ram was forced to play translator for a while then when the radio problems started they were sent to the processing plant to the radio that was set up there. The Russian left in charge there knew no Spanish and the Venezuelans knew no Russian but the Russian did speak English, well sort of. The Russian spoke English to Ram who then translated it into Spanish for the Venezuelan Major. The Venezuelan spoke Spanish to Ram who translated it into English for the Russian. Ram said it was a farce.

Don't you just hate movies that run along and you think they've resolved the conflict and the protagonists get to live happily ever after only to find out in the last five minutes of the movie that the monster really isn't dead and it has come back to eat everyone? I despised that type of movie, they made me want to scream especially when it was really unexpected rather than contrived just to irritate the viewer.

I cried buckets when I realized that Rand was alive. He was beat up and ornery but alive. Found the mules and the wagon too. They had all sorts of crap loaded on it but Bud pulled it with ease by himself. Rand had only had Bud harnessed to pull single and Lou had been tied to the back of the wagon. I had Bud in the harness and had helped Rand into the back of the wagon and had gone over to the makeshift corral to get Lou so we could get home before dark. Rand was worried about the animals despite the fact I'd told him at least three times I left them with plenty of food and water in case I was gone for more than a day.

I was tired and distracted but that was no excuse for what happened. Lou was acting skittish and suddenly tried to drag me. I made the mistake of letting go because I thought he would kick me. It wasn't Lou that kicked me, it was the big Russian … the one I thought I'd blown up.

It felt like a sledge hammer hit me. I was down and having some guy spit blocks of consonants in my face that I didn't understand. I did understand that he was hacked; his hands around my neck pretty much made that clear. I could hear the horses screaming and then that faded as the spots in my vision got bigger. I tried ramming my fingernail under his to make him let go but I guess they teach you how to deal with pain like that in the Russian army because it didn't seem to faze him at all. It felt like either my face or my lungs were going to explode if I didn't get some relief and then I imagined that it had started raining again because there were drops of wet all over my face … then nothing.

I came to when it felt like someone was feeling me up. And then my head was tilted back and I was suffocating. It took a minute but I finally found it in my to pinch my attacker.

"Ow! She's back … watch out for the nails. She scratches like a cat."

My whole focus was getting enough air into my lungs so that I could let Ram have it with both barrels right between the eyes. But then I heard a snarled, "Get out of the way." And I was crushed against a smelly shirt and was getting something that was a cross between a lecture and a promise of love everlasting if I would just open my eyes.

Rand was a mess. And I guess I was closer to being dead than was healthy there for a bit. I'm still bruised from Ram's attempt at CPR. The "rain" was where Rand and Ram had dealt with the Russian at the same time. There wasn't much left of … well, there wasn't much left and he won't be a problem ever again.

Then the military arrived. A little late to be the Calvary but their medical triage facilities were welcome. Rand and I were patched up while Ram gave his report that is being passed on to someone higher up the ladder. The soldiers from the hospital train that survived are still waiting for the tracks to be cleared and repaired. Ram was assigned to the Colonel's office as an interpreter. He's also receiving much better care; he was by yesterday to say he was being reassigned to the Colonel's staff on a permanent basis and they were going to set up in the Big Bend area. He'd keep in contact as he could, we'll know it when we see if whatever that is supposed to mean.

The military also took the few enemy troops that escaped the townpeople's … justice. Maybe that isn't what it really was but I'm afraid to think about what else you could call it. A lot of the Venezuelan and Russian weapons just disappeared. The Colonel and his people didn't seem too perturbed about it. The man seems to think that an armed citizenry is a better protection from invaders than a citizenry totally dependent on its armed forces for protection. Mr. Henderson thinks highly of the man. Goody.

Today was the first day I looked in the mirror and didn't see a purple strawberry staring back. My throat is still black and blue but time will take care of that. My ribs are another matter. It will probably be at least a week before I'll be able to draw a deep breath or cough with wanting to double over. I had a clearly defined boot print on my back before the bruise started spreading out.

Rand is sick. I mean really sick, maybe not pneumonia but close. Ram snuck over some kind of cillin and shot Rand in the hip with it and he finally started to improve. Ram wanted to give the same kind of shot to me and I told him he'd eat the needle before he got it anywhere near me. I had some funny reactions to medications after the car crash and I'd rather not take any chances.

Brendon and Paul have come by a couple of times. They check on Rand … and me … and I get news of what is going on outside our gates. It isn't good but at least now there is an enemy to prepare for. If Pepper … who is awaiting transport to a VA hospital for possible prosthetics once the train track is repaired … is right and this was only an advance guard, what will the main body look like? Providence, luck, whatever … will that be enough next time if there is a next time?

I'm tired. So tired. It is taking everything I have just to put one foot in front of the other. But all I can think of is that we're running out of wood and it is cold again and I have to churn the butter before the cream goes off and turn the compost and manure under the garden soon so that it will be ready for planting next month. It is taking everything I have to take care of what has to be done today. How am I supposed to prepare for some invading army with who knows what kind of weapons to throw against us that may or may not be coming tomorrow or a few weeks of tomorrows?


	65. Chapter 64

Chapter 64

 **December 6** **th** – Rand had a setback yesterday. He scared me a little bit. OK, he scared me a lot. But more than anything I'm mad at myself over what happened.

I was very tired from trying to do everything for days on end in addition to the sleep I hadn't been getting. I was a little testy I'll admit. All I wanted was a warm bath to help with my legs that were really feeling the extra work and the cold. It wasn't like this in Tampa, the cold never lasted this long or at least I never had to be out in it like I have been. The rain and damp weather hasn't been helping either. And I guess I was running into that stuff where Momma and the other grown up women used to say things like, "Men are so gosh darn pig headed sometimes."

Well, Rand had been trying to get out of bed but it was mostly because his fever was making him kind of discombobulated and he wasn't thinking straight. But after the fever went away he stopped trying to get out of bed but once I had come inside and started writing in my journal it seemed he kept calling me for something every few minutes. I made the mistake of giving him a bell just in case I didn't hear him call. Well, he went from calling me to ringing that bell. I was real tempted by dinner time to take the clapper out of that bell and then I thought about just melting the stupid thing down all together. I finally wound up staying up later than I had meant to trying to finish my journal entry and even then he would wake up and start talking to me.

So yesterday morning I woke up late and had to get started in a rush and Rand fussed at me a little for leaving the cow so long un-milked. I know he was just cranky from not feeling well and I tried to take it as constructive criticism because goodness knows he was right. Thing is I just wasn't in the frame of mind to really absorb it like I should have. His criticism just felt like one more thing I wasn't doing right. Hatchet and the filly didn't want to mind me. Billy and Taz were both being ornery. The chickens pecked the heck out of me when I checked their nests and one of the cows tried to kick me; guess my hands were a little cold. It was just a hard day for me. I suppose you are bound to have days like that ever so often but it just seemed like I was getting a month of my ever so oftens all at once.

On top of that I burned the cornbread and somehow put salt in the sugar bowl which ruined the batch of tea that I had made … only it wasn't me that figured that out because I hadn't taken the time to taste it before it left the kitchen. Rand took a big swig and starting coughing right away which spit the tea all over his food, the covers, and him. It was just a mess. After I got him and the bed cleaned up I went back outside and did as many outside chores as I could … stalls needed mucking, fresh hay needed to be forked in, I had to pull the Big Max pumpkins that were ready except for the one that Rand has been growing for fun to see how big he could get it, and eleventy dozen other things. And to be honest I was staying outside to avoid the dat gum bell too.

By late yesterday all I wanted was to soak in that bath … only when I went to get the hot water out of the reservoir it was all gone and I knew for a fact that I'd filled it up that morning. I looked and looked for a leak and tried to figure out what I had done wrong. I spent nearly forty-five minutes looking for the problem. Then I hear that bell going off and I run that direction thinking something was wrong.

When I got back to the bedroom instead of finding Rand in some serious trouble he snaps, "What is taking you so long? I want to go to bed."

"Then go to bed. I'm not stopping you."

"Yes you are. You're up banging around. I thought you said you were going to clean up and come to bed. I haven't seen you all day."

"Yes you did. You're just not feeling good. Go on to sleep. I'll be back in a bit."

"I want to go to bed now."

"So go."

"I said … "

"Rand, I'm trying to figure out what is wrong with the reservoir on the princess. I filled it full of water this morning and now there isn't a drop of water in there. I …"

"Of course not. I took a spit bath after you got tea all over me."

"After I got … After I … You used … You used the water and didn't fill it back … Do you know …. ARGH!" I just snapped. I threw the bucket down, grabbed my coat, and went outside. And if I'm lying I'm dying, he started ringing that bell like he was calling the cows home. I just kept walking and wound up on the little bench out in the orchard that I go to sometimes when things get the better of me. The sound of the stupid bell followed me all the way out there.

Eventually the bell stopped and I had a good temper tantrum that left off with a few tears. Then I got myself under control and I started to feel bad for how I'd acted. Rand has put up with a lot from me and has taken care of me when I've been sick and he didn't complain once, was always good natured when if I'd been him I'd probably dumped me in a ditch someplace until I learned a little appreciation.

I got up and was going back in to face the music; Lord knows I deserved it after the way I had acted. I wasn't paying too much attention but then I looked up and saw Rand holding on to one of the posts of the patio beside the summer kitchen. No coat, no hat, and he was barely in his boots.

I ran over and he just about fell down as I got there. He was shaking like a leaf. I opened my mouth – don't know what I was going to say – but before anything could come out Rand says, "Ssss … ssss … sssoooorrry. Sorry." I could barely understand him his teeth were chattering so hard.

I got him back in the house and back to our bedroom but it wasn't easy. We were both freezing cold by the time I did and I boosted him into the bed and added wood to the stove to try and get things warmed back up. Woofer and Fraidy have been sleeping in the barn … Fraidy takes care of the mice and Woofer acts as a guard dog. They'll probably come back inside but I just couldn't keep up with them and Rand and everything else. Right then I was just glad I didn't have to trip all over them too.

I pulled off Rand's boots and got him tucked back in the covers and he kept saying he was sorry. He needed to help more. I don't know what all but it was basically he was sorry for being "unappreciative and having a bad attitude." He was sorry he was being a burden.

I felt bad for making him feel bad and for making him think I thought he was a burden. It was a long time before he warmed up. I finally told him to just stop it. It wasn't his fault that I was tired and out of sorts and if anyone had the bad attitude it was me. He would hear that. It was that silly back and forth stuff when you're trying to make up and neither wants the other to take any of the blame.

He finally settled down and I set to trying to get him comfortable again which included checking and redressing all of his wounds. The invaders didn't leave too much of him untouched. His face was barely recognizable when I first found him. I still remember feeling that that couldn't be Rand, it just couldn't be. But it was. Both eyes were swollen shut. His face was cut up pretty well because the jerk that knocked him around a lot had this big ring he wore. He took a lot of body blows and they'd strung him between two posts and lashed him with a belt pretty good too because he wouldn't tell them what they wanted to know. Problem is Rand doesn't speak Spanish. He couldn't understand what they were asking. They burnt him with home-rolled cigarettes in the soft places and used a heated spoon in a couple of places too. And they kicked him in his, you know, man parts a couple of times just to be really mean.

If we hadn't shown up when we did I supposed they would have gotten around to breaking things fairly soon. I went to school with some Columbian and Honduran kids and they used to talk about the bad gangs in Central and South America and some of the reasons that their families would come to the US. It wasn't all about economics. Sometimes all they wanted was to get away from the cartels and the violence, mostly though they just brought that way of life with them.

It had been a week since it had happened and Rand was healing pretty good, especially after the shot that Ram had given him but he was restless in his sleep. I hadn't known what to do for him. I guess that was part of my testiness too. Who wants to really accept that there are some things that you just can't make better no matter how much you want to. I could say that the men that did this to him are all down and dead the hard way but I'm not sure that is exactly the kind of thing that would bring a guy like Rand any comfort. I told him how proud I was of him just for surviving, but that sounds kind of like one of those "faint praise" scenarios since surviving was the only thing he'd been given the chance to do. What really made me feel bad was when he started talking about it. I made me feel worse when I realized he hadn't talked about it because he'd been worried about making me feel bad.

"I'm sorry I left you to face this alone."

"Rand … "

"I should have done like you asked and made Ram stay an extra day. We wouldn't have been caught like we were."

"No, you don't know that. It could have wound up even worse."

"I'm sorry. I just … I just wanted to go see my friend Dell."

"Rand, there isn't anything wrong with that."

"Yeah. Yeah there is … was. I wasn't going after work like I told you. I was … I wanted …"

"Rand whatever it was … "

"No. Dell's folks … they had a Christmas tree farm. I was going over to try and … I wanted it to be a surprise. For a stupid tree I left you alone. God almighty what was I thinking?!"

"Rand! That's enough. It all worked out. Now stop it. You've got to stop this."

We went on like that for a while. That's when he started talking about what they'd done to him. A couple of times … well, even grown men need to shed a few tears to bleed off the bad stuff. He finally talked himself out and fell into an exhausted sleep. Helped along by the chamomile tea I'd fixed for him to try and get him warmed up on the inside … and by the sleeping pill I told him was an aspirin for his ouches. I don't think he has figured that out yet.

When I was sure he wouldn't wake up if I moved I got off the bed and barely made it to the bathroom and shut the door as quiet as I could before I was puking and crying at the porcelain throne. I was so mad and there wasn't anything I could do. I wanted to go back, go back and do worse things to those men. I know we are supposed to forgive our transgressors. I know we aren't really given a choice in the matter if we want to be forgiven for our own transgressions … but it has been so hard not to dwell on it; not to go back and stroke the memory over and over, building up poison in my psyche.

I crawled in bed feeling like I'd lost something but I wasn't sure what. Surprisingly I slept. I woke up this morning and was out before Rand woke up. I hurried through the morning chores and then came back inside. He was in the kitchen taking the coffee pot off the stove I'd lit before going out.

"Tea's ready. It looks cold out there."

"Not as cold as it has been. If you feel up to it, it might do you some good to sit on the porch and get some fresh air. Lord knows Woofer would be overjoyed to get a chance to lick you to pieces. He moves like greased lightning and he almost got in the house and would have woken you up."

"Let him. If he starts jumping too much I'll put the leash on him. He'll mind just to have me take it back off."

"Mmmm. Let's see how you feel after breakfast."

It was almost if the confession of last night hadn't happened. I scrambled some eggs and made the biscuits soft since Rand's mouth is still cut up pretty bad. At least he didn't lose anything teeth and nearly all the loose ones have firmed back in place. One of his molars looks discolored so it might have gotten some nerve damage. Only time will tell.

I was in the 70s today. The weather was better for my legs but the humidity made me feel tired and limp after the brisk cold weather we've been having. Uncle George came by today by himself. He was shook to see how bad Rand looked. He'd been gathering up Alicia, LauraBeth, and the boys and trying to get them home and to bed since they were all in pretty rough shape. He'd been convinced that Rand was safe and had been trying to figure out a way to help. He never did get to see the shape Rand was in at the processing plant. Last time Brendon came by he'd mentioned something about his dad seemingly refusing to believe that Rand could have been tortured despite what he'd been told. I guess he decided to see for himself.

A cool breeze had sprung up and Rand started to burrow into the quilt I had wrapped around him. Uncle George finally convinced him to go inside and I served them some lunch and then went outside to make sure none of the animals were getting up to mischief and to turn the pumpkin that I was drying in the dehydrator. I came back to the house to find Uncle George sitting in the rocker barely able to hold his coffee mug without spilling what was inside it.

Until that time I'd never heard Uncle George curse. I'd seen him look like he wanted to but I'd never actually heard those kinds of words come out of his mouth. I'm sure he wouldn't want me to record his lapse but it sure was something when he let loose a string of them. Then he drew a breath and asked kind of rhetorically, "Did you see what those dirty blankety blanks did to my boy?!"

Well, after I rehinged my jaw I said, "Yes sir. I have been the one taking care of him."

He looked for a second like his head was gonna explode but then he calmed down some. "You said he was doing better. This …. This?! … this is better?"

"Yes sir. Actually what you see is quite a bit better than what he was at first."

"Girl sit down. I cain't talk to you if you look like you preparing to run off. Just how bad was he?"

"I thought Brendon told you."

"He did but I guess I thought he was exaggerating. He said that Rand had been … been tortured. That's not something you want to believe."

"No. No it isn't. But that's what they did. And before you ask, no, I don't know what for. I wasn't there and Ram was in another part of the plant and didn't realize what was happening. He thought Rand had just been incarcerated with some of the other men that had been brought over to help take care of the animals. When we finally found Rand I thought Ram was gonna kill the few invaders that were already dead."

"What about you girl? What did you do when you found him like this?"

"Uncle George, I'd rather not ever talk about it. I … I don't know that I can talk about it. Most of them were dead by that time. I don't even think this guy realized that … I was looking in all of the offices trying to find out where a noise was coming from that I kept hearing. Ram was with me. The guy had just started to … you don't want to know Uncle George. I'll live with it. Rand was unconscious. He doesn't have to know and I don't want you telling him. Do you understand?"

"All right. What you've told me is enough. I won't hold it against you girl. And I won't ask you about it ever again. There's some things … well, it's over, just don't let it fester if it starts to. You come to me and talk it out. We'll keep it between us. Understand."

It was a second before I could answer him because the offer and the acceptance had been so unexpected. But I agreed and I suppose maybe one of these days I'll take him up on it, but not right now. Not when everything is still so fresh and unsettled.

It was about that time that Mitch rode up the road and hollered ahead that he'd brought a couple of visitors. With my hand on my pistol … and Uncle George covering from behind the hedge row I was growing on the trellis … I met them as they rode up.

"Kiri, this is Major Timble and those three are his escorts."

I nodded as the remaining introductions were made. I asked, "You've got business here?"

"Hmm. Sgt. Diaz warned me that you preferred things to be brief and to the point."

"Yes sir, you could say that," I responded waiting for him to continue.

"I am investigating the incursion …"

"The invasion."

I could tell I wasn't making any friends by the way the Major's lips thinned out. "As I said, I am investigating the incursion that occurred last week. I have been given to understand that you instigated the rebellion … "

"Whoa. First off, before you think that I'm just some doofus chick that doesn't have any respect for your rank I'd like to state that my Daddy was a Sgt in the US Air Force before his death. I have all sorts of respect. On the other hand, Sgt. Diaz is right when he says I don't have a lot of tolerance for being run roughshod over. I won't be railroaded. If you have specific questions I'll give you specific answers but if not I suggest you come back when you've got your questions figured out. My husband was tortured by the invaders and he is far from well and needs my attention. His uncle is also here visiting and I'm trying to get news of his daughters and daughter-in-law that are very pregnant and that were also hurt by the invaders. So if you …"

"Ms. … Joiner is it?"

"It's Mrs. Joiner so you can keep any idea you might have about me being some kind of Rambo bra-burner."

"Please, let's not be difficult."

"Fine by me but I'm not the one … "

"Oh for heaven's sake girl, I just need to ask you a few questions."

"Then ask 'em instead of dancing around about it … but call a spade a spade already. I'm not made of sugar and I won't melt. You can't scare me any worse than those people already have."

By that time Mitch was having to look off in a different direction and bite his lip. Uncle George was tugging at his hat and chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"Fine. What I really need is for you to walk me through exactly what happened. You are our only witness … "

"What happened to Pepper Duncan?"

The major started looking real uncomfortable and I started getting suspicious. "Major, what happened to Pepper?"

"Lt. Duncan succumbed to his injuries."

I wasn't buying it. "He was fine when he and Ram left for the hospital tents. He was strong as an ox despite … you know … the leg thing. He took me down and the only reason I got loose of him was because he let me. He wasn't sick at all."

The major continued to look a little green around the gills and I was starting to get mad when one of the other men said, "Begging your pardon Major but … ma'am, Pepper Duncan was my friend but after his injury he wasn't … well, he wasn't himself. That's how he and Sgt. Diaz had hooked up, they were in a special ward for men … that were having … difficulties. Sgt. Diaz has obviously improved a great deal since I last saw him. Pepper had as well from what everyone was saying. But they were doing a debriefing and … the feds since a civilian psychologist … the man had never seen combat, never had any training … it's just … Pepper was fine going into the debriefing but coming out … There is an investigation but that won't bring Pepper back."

The Major took back control of the conversation and said, "So you see Mrs. Joiner, not only do we need you to give a deposition as to what you saw from the outside, we'd like you to give testimony as to Lt. Duncan's frame of mind while you were in his company."

I was a few moments absorbing what I'd just found out. "What do you need me to do?"

"Optimally I would like you to physically walk through that day, your actions, and to recount everything that you can."

"Now?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"But …"

That's when Uncle George said, "She ain't going by herself. My boy is too sick right now but I'll be here. Mitch, I'm going to bring the two young un's over here first thing in the morning, they'll handle the chores, but I expect Henderson to see to everything else. You understand?"

Mitch answered, "It'll be taken care of. You stay here and supervise and someone will go with Kiri."

"In case y'all have forgotten, I'm sorta standing right here."

They kept on making plans and this time it was the Major who was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning.

So that's what I'm doing tomorrow. Rand is fit to be tied but I don't see any way around it. Uncle George is bringing Mick and Tommy over first thing and Uncle George will keep Rand company … assuming he doesn't drive him nuts … while the boys do the chores. I made a bunch of extra biscuits and I've set dried veggies to soak. I'll put everything on a slow burner before I head out in the morning to try and minimize the mess they make in the kitchen. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a little rough for a couple of different reasons and I'd rather not have to dread wondering what shape the house is going to be in when I get back.


	66. Chapter 65

Chapter 65

 **December 7** **th** – Well, the Major sure has a thing for Pearl Harbor Day. He made a big deal out of it and even drew some connections between the unprovoked attack at Pearl Harbor and what happened in our little town. I'm not sure I got all of it but the Major sure seemed to find his outrage as the day wore on and he stopped calling it an "incursion" and started calling it a "repelled invasion." Strange, but I'm not so crazy that I'll look a gift horse in the mouth these days.

Rand was as restless as I have ever seen him in his sleep. When he wasn't tossing and turning he was draped over and around me so tightly there were times I could barely breathe. After one elbow too many I just got up and made my wat to the kitchen to start some tea; not the herbal stuff either, I wanted the strong black stuff that I stoked up some more by making it really sweet.

Not fifteen minutes later Rand came stumbling in all wild eyed, "Where did you go?!"

As gently as I could after being startled and like that I said, "I'm right here." I picked up the quilt he was dragging and tried to get him to go back to bed. You can imagine how well that went over when I wouldn't go with him.

Rand got this look on his face like he was about to make a major announcement. "I'm going with you today."

"Rand … "

"Kiri … "

I just looked at him. I didn't want to hurt his feelings but there was no way he was in any shape to do what he wanted to do. Then his shoulders slumped.

"My God … I'm useless."

"No you're not!"

"Kiri … "

"Rand, I won't hear anyone talking you down, not even you. You're injured. You're hurt. But it won't stay that way. You will get better. You just need to give yourself some time."

"Don't say it."

I couldn't help it. It's like I was channeling my parents or something. Him asking me not to say it only made me need to say it even more. "And this too shall pass."

"Babe, I asked you not to say it."

"But you know it's true. You know it is."

"Not fast enough, you need me now."

"I have you now. I have you whether you are standing in front of me or not. Even when you aren't physically there I feel you caring for me, thinking of me, praying for me. I remember when that was missing in my life, now it's not. You make my life different."

"Babe, you just …"

"It's all right Rand. I know I don't say that kind of stuff much but I think it all the time." I ran my fingers through his perpetually messy hair. "Whatever you do, you let me know I'm important to you, a priority, that I'm part of your present and your future."

"Babe … how come … how … " He shivered and shook his head. "Fine, I won't make things harder on you than they already are but you are going armed to the teeth. And even then you aren't going if Henderson doesn't provide a guard that I'm comfortable with. And I want you to ride Lou."

That was easy enough to say yes to. After I said, "Whatever you think best Rand." He seemed to run out of energy and began to get gray faced. I helped him to push his chair closer to the stove and then cooked some cheesy grits and heated up some of the sausages that I had canned.

I was nearly worried enough about Rand that I was seriously thinking about not going. Rand was dozing in the rocker next to the stove when the sun came up and twenty minutes later Uncle George showed up with Mick and Tommy. The boys were riding two burros and then threw the reins over the rail that Rand had built and then ran around to the kitchen. I caught them while they were still outside and told them to wait for Uncle George.

"It's all right Babe. I'm awake. Let those two monkeys come on in."

And they were off again and then suddenly there was silence. Uncle George and I stepped inside to find the boys just standing there with wide eyes and pale faces. I looked at Uncle George and he said, "I tried to tell 'em but … " and he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"Come on boys. I don't look that bad do I?"

Mick with the kind of honesty you usually only get with little kids, "You look awful!"

Tommy, the more sensitive of the two, wanted to know if he hurt. "Not as much as it did but enough that I'm gonna need your help today."

Both boys were eager to do it and Uncle George told me behind his hand, "Now if I could only get them to be that eager about their chores at home."

I left them to plan the day and I made some Sherpa Tea. I mixed two cups of powdered milk, one-third of a cup of sugar, and two tablespoons of instant tea with lemon in a small plastic container with a tight lid and then I shook it to mix everything up. Then I poured boiling water into my good thermos. When the time came I'd put a cup of hot water in the lid and mix in three heaping tablespoons of the powder and va-voom … good stuff; at least to me it is.

I was checking over my pack and watching Rand go over the guns he wanted me to carry … rifle, shotgun, 9mm, and the Mark III … when I heard the boys came running back into the house with the milk pail they had just left with saying that they heard horses coming towards the house. It was the three soldiers from yesterday along with Mitch, Bradley and Hoss.

"Kiri," Mitch said tipping his hat. "Seems like you are to take these men on a trek around our area."

"I suppose that's what they are expecting."

The one that was introduced to me as Lt. Dillingham said,"Ma'am, the Major is waiting up at the road with … a Mr. Henderson. He wants to try and get this taken care of as quickly as possible."

"I wouldn't mind that myself." I turned around and went to Rand who'd limped outside in the moccasins we made him, the only thing he's been able to tolerate for long on his feet. The men gave us a little privacy to say our good byes and I told him, "Please let the boys do the work today. I know you want to get back in gear but I'll feel much better if you would take it easy for another couple of days."

"I'll be fine. Don't you go any further than Mr. Henderson until he is satisfied that you've got enough escort. I'm not comfortable with this. I hate it, but if you are going he'll be the one who can tell if the Major is on the up and up. And stay … "

" … out of trouble. I'll try my best. You stay out of trouble too, and try not and let Uncle George drive you too nuts. I'll be back as soon as I can. There is stew on the back of the stove when you all get hungry and bread in the pie keep."

I mounted Lou – feeling a little bit ridiculous taking both the rifle and the shotgun – and rode with the six men to where Mr. Henderson waited with two more men that I'd never met dressed in cowboy gear plus Major Timble who sat with another young soldier that was trying his best not to look nervous.

I said hello to Mr. Henderson and asked him about his leg which he said was "tolerable." He also said that Mitch, Hoss, and Bradley would be my escorts and that the two men who he called Junior and Gator would be with him while he visited with Uncle George and Rand for a while. I was a bit embarrassed by all the favoritism being shown to me but if it made Rand feel better then I decided to put up with it for a while.

The Major wasn't real pleased to see that three obviously capable men were escorting me, carrying enough hardware to mount a more than adequate defense if need be, but he gave in with good grace … or maybe he just gave in knowing he didn't have any choice. Even had I been inclined to just lead the Major around by myself no one seemed inclined to let me.

The Major asked some general questions as we headed out to US90 and then over to CR136. We followed CR136, taking the route I took through town. I showed them the house that I slept in and then was a little shocked to see that one side of the building had collapsed. I guess I was a lot luckier than I thought.

When I told them what I had done – taking the guy out and dumping him down the manhole and then taking out the radio operator – Major Timble expressed a lot of … I'll be polite and call it skepticism. I could have cared less. I was telling him what happened and how it happened, he could believe it or not, it was no skin off my nose. But then my "escorts" had to get in on it and tell about all the other stuff I'd found myself in the middle of. That was totally embarrassing and I told them to knock it off. The Major gave me the squinty-eye and told me to show him the manhole.

The Major didn't even believe I could have lifted the manhole but I'm a lot stronger than I look and the "manhole" wasn't your typical cover but was one of those lighter types that you find when they aren't located in the street. I just pulled out my big craftsman screwdriver … I don't leave home without it … and pried the lid back quick without thinking.

I had to crawl away really quick to keep from throwing up; the smell hit me full in the face. By the time my stomach was under control one of the soldiers had gone down and confirmed that the body was wearing the same type camouflage type uniform the invaders had and also showed a head wound and did not have any guns. However, the man was gut shot and that was his cause of death. I told them I hadn't shot the man, only hit him on the head and dumped him after taking his weapons. The Major made sure that the "discrepancy" got written in notebook one of his men were carrying.

I was upset, not so much that the Major called it a discrepancy but at the fact that someone had shot the guy … assuming it was the same guy which it most likely was. Why would someone have done that? What purpose did it serve? And who did it?

Next I had to prove I could make the shot I claimed I did when it came to taking out the radio. That was easy enough and the Major's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. Rand can shoot a lot better than me and I expect a lot of people around here can. I don't know why he was so flaming surprised. Even boys like Mick and Tommy help protect the livestock and put meat on the table. I found out later the Major only had one child … a daughter … but she was pretty young when she died from the flu and from what I gather from what he said was spoiled and protected so maybe he just doesn't get how things are these days.

From there it got more interesting. The people along River Road were suspicious of us. The only one that seemed to thaw at all was Ron Harbinger and Mr. Winston who were out front of the Harbinger place working on the fence. Not giving the Major any chance to object I stopped and enquired whether I could run up to the main house and stick my head in and say hello to Julia. Ron said sure but that everyone would probably run interference before I could get near the baby. I rode up to the house and Julia was sitting on the porch. She didn't look so hot. There was a fading bruise on her cheek, but it was weird … she looked happier than I had ever seen her. She had the baby in her lap so I didn't want to get too close.

"He won't bite," she laughed.

"Maybe not but I'm dirty and I don't want to set him off. Babies make a crazy amount of noise when you set them off."

"They make a lot of noise when anything sets them off, but I've got a good baby. He's just as sweet as he can be, oh yes he is."

When she started with the weird talk I made my escape. I'm afraid if I started holding one I'd start wanting one and that isn't something that Rand and I need right now, not with him being laid up and all the insanity on the airwaves of the radio. I'll explain that later.

It wasn't too far from there that I showed them where I cut behind the compound … now semi-occupied by the US Military … and we had to wait for the Major to send one of his men ahead so that we wouldn't get shot at. When I was trying to explain to them how I had run in to the portable building I had to keep going over it. I expect that really didn't believe me. I have a hard time believing I did that now that the rush is past. When I told them how I rigged the grenade all of them, even Mitch, just sort of sat there with their mouths hanging open.

"Young lady, would you please explain to me how you figured out how to do such a thing if you have never handled explosives before?"

"I never said I'd never handled explosives before. One of the foster boys I used to live with really had a thing for … ummm … pyrotechnics. I'd just never handled a real grenade before but they aren't exactly what you would call a complicated piece of machinery. Besides, all the war movies I used to watch with my Daddy is what gave me the idea especially movies like _The Dirty Dozen_."

I thought the Major's eyes were going to bug out and the other men, including one of the soldiers, suddenly fell into a fit of coughing. I don't mean to make people crazy, it just sort of happens.

From there I took them to the vantage point where I met Pepper Duncan. We were all real solemn and I had it confirmed, even though it hadn't been said outright before then, that Pepper … he took his own life. The major was shaking mad. Last night the so-called psychologist admitted that he didn't like military men but he also denied intentionally seeking to hurt them. He still believed that Lt. Duncan was suffering from denial of what he would be capable of and didn't want to believe that the military would send him back to civilian life to make it however he could.

"We've been forced up to this point into using civilians for debriefing purposes. They were supposed to be the independent observers of what is occurring within the ranks. From here on out those special civilian observers will not be dealing with anything more important than paper clips and thumb tacks if the Colonel has his way."

"The Colonel" is the same one whose staff that Ram has been assigned. I heard later that Mr. Henderson said that the Colonel was a "Constitutionalist" and had a particular way of looking at things. This won over a lot of people, but it has made him more than a few enemies as well.

While I was thinking about Pepper and what a waste his loss was I crawled through the culvert again and they got out their silly measuring tape and set up another target. It took me a couple of times to hit it.

Hoss said, "Kiri, that was a dat blamed lucky shot."

"Luck didn't have anything to do with it. I prayed for some help."

That got me a look from a lot of the soldiers standing around but the Major didn't give me any grief at all. He just said, "Hmmmm."

I don't know what it was but all of a sudden I started getting depressed and walked away. Mitch and his men knew to give me room. I guess my mood swings are pretty common knowledge. The Major though, I don't guess he paid any attention to Mitch's suggestion that we take a break since we'd been at this all morning. The Major came over to where I was standing and asked, "Why the sudden appearance of caution? Do you have anything you should be telling me?"

I didn't even have the energy to get mad like I probably should have. "No. But would you get a kick out of all of this? I don't like killing people sir. This isn't anything like I thought my life was going to turn into or be about. I didn't chose this, not to start with. But the people of this town … this is where I live. I know a lot of these people, well sort of, I've met them and most of them have been nice. They are survivors. I know what being a survivor feels like. I've been doing it to some degree since my family was killed. But even then, I didn't do it for the towns people, I did it because I was looking for Rand and I thought he was in here somewhere. I did it because I know Rand would have done it for me. But saying it out loud like that, it doesn't make me sound like a very good person and … and … I don't like that too much."

Then I got a surprise. "Young lady, soldiers don't do their job because they like it. They do it because their honor demands it."

I'm still not sure if he was calling me a soldier but I think he was trying to comfort me in some way. Either way he wasn't cutting me any slack and had me back to describing what happened. You only really catch things like that in snapshots, your part of it. The tower fell and the odds got moved in the townspeople's favor just enough that perseverance the townspeople prevailed. Not everyone lived and a lot of the invaders probably wished they had died in the initial fighting. I didn't know about how some of them had been dragged off into the woods and given some rough country justice. I'm not sure that I would have cared then, but I cared now and I didn't want to think about it too hard.

I told them how frantic I had been that I couldn't find Rand, how I had asked everyone and how no one had seen him. "And that is when you decided to check the processing plant?"

"No, I mean it was but it wasn't my idea. You have to understand, a lot of the families are dependent on their livestock. They knew, from some of the people that had been captured in the second pass the invaders made in the community, that all of the farm animals were being gathered up and taken over to the processing plant to be slaughtered to feed the invaders and the larger number of invaders that would be coming in behind them. After all of the families were reunited they thought of the animals."

"And you just went along for the ride?"

"No. Rand's cousin … Brendon Crenshaw … had stayed behind after his father had taken the women and boys back with him to the farm. He and Clyde … that's a neighbor that helps out … went to go gather up their animals, or at least to make certain that they were separated out. They have a large number of them as their business was a small beef and dairy farm before everything went bad. They also keep pigs and chickens."

"Did they get all of their animals back?"

"What? Oh … yeah … except for a pig that they are pretty sure was killed and eaten by the invaders. They had to put down one of their dairy cows after they got her home, I'm not sure what was wrong with it."

"Some people are claiming that they lost a great deal of livestock and they are applying for assistance."

"I don't know. You'll have to take it up with them. Or ask Mr. Henderson, he might know."

We had gotten back on our mounts and were riding over to the processing plant and I dreaded it. Mitch was there that day so I left it to him to explain how they were already prepared for us when we arrived, having heard the fighting at the compound. But the small number of men that had been left to manage the livestock weren't a match for our numbers. Also, there were townspeople on the inside under guard that overpowered their captors so that the invaders wound up fighting a battle on two fronts. They lost, big time.

But still no Rand. I got off Lou and tied him to a post and walked inside. I don't think I was paying too much attention to the Major or anyone else at that point. It's like I was reliving it only in slow motion. I remember still hearing screams even after the fighting at stopped. I remember know that wasn't right, that I needed to make it stop. I walked from the processing floor back into the administrative offices. It was as dark as it was that day until I got to the back of the building where the executive offices were located. The windows back there let in plenty of light, too much light; the UV film had bubbled off and peeled away in a lot of places.

Ram kept calling me to slow down but the screams had stopped. They had to break the chair that he had been cuffed to since they couldn't find the keys on the dead man that had secured him there.

I couldn't … I guess something in me knew but didn't want to think admit it. I still don't want to think about it. Rand's restlessness isn't the only thing keeping me up at night. There was this conference room, or at least that is what I think that spaced was used for. It was too big to big someone's office and there were chairs piled up in the corner of the room. The carpeting on the floor was dusty and moldy. The whole room stank … but not just from the carpet and the mold on the walls.

Reality didn't want to register. I won't describe what met my eyes. That's between Rand and I and it is going to stay like that. He was unconscious by the time I got there. There was this guy and he was using a flensing knife and was … forget it, not going there except in my nightmares. My inner monster took over. I guess we all have one but I don't like to let mine out, it looks way too much like the person I see in the mirror every day.

Remembering, I slowly turned into the room. The walls were still splattered with things I would rather not think about. The metal frame that Rand had been tied to was still there but had fallen over. There were dark, sticky spots in the carpet that I avoided. And then a glitter caught my. It was that ring, that godforsaken ring. It was days before the last of the bruises caused by that ring came to the surface.

I picked the ring up and threw it as hard as I could … narrowly missing the Major who had been following me. He ducked thank goodness but it was a moment or two (or three) before I had myself under enough control to apologize. I'm not sure what he saw on my face but as he guided me out of the room I heard him tell some soldiers that had been standing around, "I want that room stripped. Then burn whatever you take out. Now."

It didn't take long to walk outback to the holding pens. "Rand came around and I guess we were all running on adrenaline. People were so happy to find their livestock and to find the few folks that had been unaccounted for that we weren't paying as much attention as we should have been, at least I wasn't. We were just pulling ourselves together to get home before it got any later. I just knew I needed to get Rand home and fast. This was before the cavalry showed up with their medical stuff."

"So you found you found a conveyance?" the Major prompted.

"Yeah, our wagon was sitting right over there. Had a bunch of junk in it – empty green boxes and junk like that – and I wasn't able to push it out. I moved things around just enough to give Rand a place to lay down and I threw a couple of canvas tarps in there to try and take away some of the sharp edges. Then I spotted the mules. Bud was no problem, he wanted to go home and let me hitch him. Lou … Lou is the one I'm riding today … was acting funny. I should have known to pay more attention, Lou always looks after me, but I just thought it was all the craziness and noise you know. Then he took me skiing for a few feet and I was afraid I couldn't stay to my feet so I turned loose. I've still got the bruises from not paying attention like I should. I don't know where Rand and Ram found the energy … especially Rand … but if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be here. The rest is probably in some report from the military guys that showed up after that."

"Yes," he said and then paused. "The Russian … he was a Lieutenant Colonel Dragovanovich and he had a very nasty reputation according to the little bit of intel we've been able to locate on him. The Venezuelans that we've been able to recover and interrogate both feared and hated him in equal degree. He showed no respect to the Venezuelans at all, none of the Russian elite did. Apparently after the action down in south Florida Dragovanovich thought they would have more success if he took some men into this area and softened the locals up first. Obviously he was wrong." He patted me on the shoulder. I was still away in my head a bit and didn't pay him too much attention.

A little while later Mitch startled me out of my daze when he came up and said, "The Major wants to know if we can wait a few more minutes while he makes sure everything is in order and to make sure nothing needs clarifying."

I remember saying, "Fine, whatever" before going over to a stoop out of the human traffic and sitting down and pulling out my thermos. A soldier walked over with a chair and said, "With the Major's compliments ma'am." It beat sitting on cold concrete so I didn't fuss and even said thank you.

Mitch, Hoss, and Bradley milled about a bit talking with some of the soldiers on breaks but they never let me out of their sight, not even when I found out where the latrines were from a passing female soldier. I was just getting the point of being anxious to get home to Rand when another soldier came up and asked if we'd come with him to the Major's office. The "office" was a tent set up between the former compound and the processing plant.

"I appreciate your forbearance. It appears that everything is in order and I won't keep you any longer. Mr. Peters, I was told that you would see Mrs. Joiner home safely." At Mitch's nod the Major continued, "I would ask that anything you might have seen or heard be carefully hoarded and not become common knowledge. We suspect that the invaders may have had look outs or contacts within the community before … "

Hoss exclaimed, "Now hold on a second there … "

"Easy Hoss," I warned not wanting the hotheaded man to get into trouble when he didn't need to just because the Major tiffed him off. "Don't forget 'members of the community' include people like the ones we ran into at Itchetucknee and some of the refugees from the resettlement camp. When people get hungry and scared for their own they'll do things that they might never have imagined themselves doing."

The Major, maybe a better judge of character than I had given him credit for being at first said, "Perhaps I should rephrase my words. We believe that they had contacts living in this area, not necessarily long time members of the community. But we are ruling nothing out. Henderson appears to screen his men quite … thoroughly. He also keeps close tabs on the community and he too raised the issue that the invaders appeared to have quite a bit of inside information considering the language barrier. So, anything that you think you surmise … ignore it, don't share it, forget it. But remain vigilant. While there would not appear to be a good reason for them to strike this area to begin with their reasons may lead them back again if they think the guard here has dropped."

"Resources," I blurted out before I thought hard enough. "Resources for their supply lines. They went after the animals nearly as soon as they did the people. Who isn't hungry these days? And I imagine an army would be real worried about feeding its troops."

I got a look from all the men in the room, especially the Major who gave me a considering look. "Perhaps. It would be to everyone's benefit if any … unusual or sudden … wealth … was watched carefully. While it is perfectly reasonable to assume that there are people that prepared or are industrious, it would still be wise to be … cautious."

In other words I figure he is asking us in a roundabout way to be snitches. Well, that isn't going to happen. I already know for a fact that any shenanigans are likely to find the stupid on the wrong end of a gun. This isn't the wild west, but it isn't quite the 21st century any more either.

The day moved pretty quick after that. We were back on US90 and in no time I found myself on our road and then in front of our house. In no time after that Uncle George told the boys to load up they needed to get home. I got a quick, hard hug from him and the boys … really weird and all I could do was stand there as stiff as a statue because it was so unexpected … and then a wink from Mr. Henderson as he and Junior and Gator left.

I must have looked a little silly because I walked up to Rand – he was in an extraordinarily good mood which was again strange after the way he had been last night and this morning – and he looked at me and said, "Alone at last."

I was so tired that all I was thinking about was that I hadn't had lunch and that I still needed to cook dinner. I wasn't paying too much attention to Rand grinning like a lunatic because I just thought that it was because he was glad to have me home in one piece. I walked through the kitchen and into the living room and smack into a crate.

"What the heck?!"

"Christmas came a little early."

There were boxes everywhere. I have to say that just for a second all I could think about was the mess. It wasn't that long ago that I stopped tripping over the stuff we had brought back from Itchetucknee. Thankfully I managed to keep my groans and moans to myself and just stand there thunderstruck.

"I know. Isn't it great! Ram sent this by way of Mr. Henderson. Of course Henderson got a cut but he was more than happy to help out and I … I know I … look Ram sent some black powder and some other re-load stuff and Clyde … "

"Oh … um sure … whatever you think best. Please tell me all these boxes aren't full of stuff that goes boom."

"Oh Babe," Rand laughed like I was being funny on purpose, 'cause I wasn't, I was serious. "I don't know what is in half …. "

But I had stopped listening. There was a tree … a real honest to goodness Christmas tree … standing where the TV and stereo cabinet used to be.

"Oh Rand … where did it come from?"

"Where did what come from? Oh, uh that, well the boys helped me. The wagon was hitched to Bud because we needed more logs and I road to show them the tree I have been working on cutting into pieces. We drove passed this cedar and Tommy said it looked like a Christmas tree. I thought that you might … well anyway, don't you want to know what is in the boxes that Ram sent?"

"Rand, it's perfect. It's just like the trees that Daddy used to cut for us."

"It is? But … it's not a real Christmas tree; it's just an old cedar. Ram probably sent some good stuff and … "

"It is too a Christmas tree, a perfect Christmas tree. Let's decorate it. Tonight. I'll pop corn and …"

And then Rand was laughing. I mean really laughing and then he was … well, not laughing anymore and just holding on to me real tight.

"I keep forgetting. It's never been about presents to you has it?"

Well that just confused me like it always does when he gets all philosophical but then I forgot about being confused because I was home and Rand was home and … we hadn't cuddled in a while. He was still hurt and I was a lot more tired than I expected but that didn't stop us … not much anyway.

Dinner was soup and popcorn and some eggless eggnog that I made with milk and vanilla pudding and nutmeg. You take a three ounce box of instant vanilla pudding and mix it with one cup of milk until the pudding forms, then you add milk until you get the thickness of nog that you like to drink and add one or two teaspoons of vanilla and about a quarter teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Not the most nutritious dinner in the world but it was fun.

Next I pulled my Mom's and Rand's mom's decorations out of the storage tub I had put them in for safe keeping and we decorated the little tree with our favorite ornaments. The tree wouldn't hold them all so in the next couple of days I'll make a garland to hang and we'll had the other ornaments on that. I would have started on it tonight since there were some branches on the porch that they had trimmed off the bottom of the tree but Rand was running out of steam by that point and I could tell he was having to work hard at looking like he was having fun.

I was all set for us to go to bed after taking care of the last few animal chores … the never ending animal chores … but Rand wanted me to read the letter that Ram had written.

"Just tell me what was in it."

"I didn't read it."

"What not?"

"It was addressed to you. You wouldn't have read anything that was addressed just to me."

"That's different."

"Kiri … don't be ornery, just read the letter."

"Fine. Dear Kiri and Rand … see, it was addressed to both of us. Hey, no throwing pillows. You want me to read this or not?"

 _Dear Kiri and Rand,_

 _I didn't get to say much of a good bye. I supposed by now you've heard about Pepper, if not I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I thought I was the weaker of the two of us but it looks like I was wrong. It's hard to be happy about something that should never have happened and is a loss. But I promise from here on out that you don't have to worry about me living in the past. Whatever happened between Sherri and I, it's over and I can't change it. I can only go forward from here. At least that is what I'm telling myself today, Shorty._

 _I had a bit of good luck. I ran across a reclamation operation that failed. We haven't found it in the official roster so we don't know if it was officially sanctioned or not. No locals were making a claim to anything … no locals around here anymore, the summer storms ran them off of the coast. We are prohibited from making a profit of any kind off the reclamation operations but the Colonel reads the regs that we have some leeway as to where we offload and distribute any reclaimed resources. No really, no "wink, wink, nudge, nudge." The Colonel is a straight shooter. The man squeaks when he walks. It's bizarre because he is actually getting things done without having to grease any palms if you know what I mean._

 _Since your little town got hit by the VRC (short for Venezuelan-Russian Coalition) the Colonel readily signed off on a good sized shipment coming your way. It was made doubly easy when he found out that Bill Sawyer is ex-military and runs the Trade Shack._

 _I hope I did OK. I sent most of the convenience foods, what there were, to the Shack for distribution in the community. Sent all the baby stuff that way too, not that there was much. I peeked and you and Rand seemed prepared for that but you also said you weren't looking for that to happen any time soon. I ain't saying anything else about that because the pictures that makes in my head turns my brain inside out._

 _Had to give Henderson a cut to take you the stuff I did manage to set aside. Not too happy about that but he's not a bad guy, just wish I could have sent you more but I was limited to a poundage and that included whatever it cost to transport it to your place._

 _Hope you can use what I did manage to send. The big crate is full of fabric. The lieutenant I work with called them bolts of fabric. I don't have any reason to think that she is wrong. The lieutenant also helped me to pick out some of the clothes and stuff that is in the other boxes. Man oh man, it's the end of the world and women are still hard to shop for. Rand, there is a box you might want to have inside the crate that has some odds and end metal stuff… files, spikes and stuff like that. The medics around here pass them out like party favors._

 _Sorry Kiri, most of the paper goods were already gone by the time we rolled into the warehouse but I did manage to pull some more cleaning junk. I know you had mentioned bleach but that was all requisitioned by the mobile hospital, even that powdered chlorine stuff you use for pools. They are having to sterilize and reuse all of their instruments … and some of their bandages which is pretty much as gross as you can imagine even if they do boil them in cauldrons and then dry and press them in these special laundry units that have been set up. Most of the rags and towels were also requisitioned by the hospital but I'll stay on the look out._

 _There is a footlocker buried in the second big crate. Rand, have fun. I'm not sure how this got overlooked but I slid it into the pile I was sending. I'm telling Henderson what is in it so he can protect it special. If you don't get it then you know who to take it up with._

 _I'll leave you to going through everything. And no, I don't want anything in return except maybe a place to stay if I can ever get up that way again and a meal to fill my belly. I was in a lot worse shape than perhaps you knew but now I am not. You and Rand are buena gente._

 _Vaya con Dios hermanita. Look after my little sister Rand and keep her safe … especially from herself._

 **December 8** **th** – Would pick baking day to warm back up. Rand tried to do too much yesterday and has a wet cough today. I dosed him with some store-bought decongestant that I had and he's been coughing up nasty junk most of the day and sleeping the rest of it.

He did manage to help a little with unpacking the boxes that Ram had sent. I put the wooden crates out in the shed. Rand wants to take them apart and use them as building materials for the larger henhouse that he says we need.

I need some shelving up in the sewing room as well to store all the bolts of fabric that we have. What I don't think I have enough of is thread. I guess that is something that guys just don't think about. You can have lots of fabric, zippers, buttons, pins and what have you but if you don't have sewing thread you are kind of stuck. I've written it down on my list to talk to Missy about.

The footlocker is what the black powder and stuff was in. I'll leave that to Rand. I pushed it under the dining room table until he can deal with it. Everything else I just found a hole for except for the few things that I set in the kitchen. I feel like quarantining some of the food stuff that Ram sent. The flour was full of weevils. Not as bad as some I've seen but still, I spent over an hour sifting it and then putting it into jars.

I used some of the flour to finish the day's baking. I had a jar of dill pickles that only had one pickle left so I used the juice and pickle to make Dill Pickle Bread. Then I made the big batch of salt rising bread too. While the big batch of bread of baking I made a batch of doughnuts using a cup of my sourdough starter. The first two batches of sourdough that I tried didn't make for some reason but the third batch did and it has been going gangbusters ever since, I just have to keep it fed. The last thing I made was some trail bread.

First you add 2 cups of white flour, two cups of whole wheat flour, one-third cup of wheat germ, three tablespoons of powdered milk, three-quarter cup of packed brown sugar, one and a half teaspoon of baking powder, and one and a half teaspoon of salt together in a big bowl. Then in another bowl mix three-quarter cup of water, half cup of honey, one-third cup of molasses, and one-third cup of vegetable oil then add and blend the rest of the ingredients until the dough mix is moist. Then pour the dough into a greased square baking pan and bake at 300 degrees for one hour. The bread should pull away from the side of the pan when ready. The weird thing about this bread is that you cut it into squares while warm and then leave it in the pan to dry, uncovered, for eight to ten hours. After that you wrap each piece individually in plastic wrap and store them in ziploc bags. This bread keeps and travels really well without getting all smushed or crumbling all to pieces.

I think the tea I drank too late has finally worn off. Teach me to use black tea instead of herbal when I just want to wet my whistle. And there goes Rand moaning in his sleep. I'm worried that he is having nightmares. I don't know whether to ask him or not. It scares me how long Rand is taking to come back from this. I've never known him to do anything but bounce back like a rubber ball, this is totally different. I don't know how to help him.


	67. Chapter 66

Chapter 66

 **December 11** **th** – I really wish this weather would make up its mind. After being all cold and rainy it's popping up into the 80s – OK low 80s but still – in the middle of the day. The mosquitoes may be doing the happy dance but I'm certainly not. I don't mind it being warm at all; I just would like to have a better idea of what the weather was going to be from one day to the next. It gets frustrating trying to plan chores.

The weather, aside from the exploding bug population, has actually been good for Rand. He's been able to sit out in the porch or lanai and soak up some sun. He's nowhere near as pale looking as he was and his bruises have stopped spreading though there are still quite a few that look nasty. I think his lungs are finally clear too. Pastor Ken, looking rode hard and hung up wet, agrees but asked Rand to continue taking it easy for another week before even thinking about doing any heavy labor; not what Rand wanted to hear but he'll mind or I'll tie him to the bed posts for the duration. I still worry there is a relapse in there somewhere waiting to happen. This whole thing has scared me to death. I know in my head that Rand and I haven't been together even a year but I don't know how I would live without him and I can't even bring myself to think like that because all I see is this huge black nothingness.

I know how real that real life can be. And I lived … sort of … after losing Daddy and Momma and brother but, I don't want to go through that again. And it is different too. Rand feels like he is part of me, the good part. Losing him would be like having my heart cut out and amputating both arms and a leg. I might still be me, but a lot of important parts would be gone and not growing back.

Pastor Ken came just in time for lunch today. I made bean bread with some fried squirrel. I shot the squirrel out in the orchard chewing around at the base of one of my peach trees. Thankfully Rand felt well enough to skin it. I don't mind cutting our table meat up for cooking but I prefer not having to skin the furry ones, plucking that turkey was hard enough. Rand has all of the furry stuff from our hunting successes strung on what he calls stretchers. Some he is going to make into leather … gloves, gaskets, etc. … and some he is going to leave furry. I have come around to the idea of having a fur bead spread, we just may not get it this year; I hate trying to sleep in the cold. Rand says it will keep the amount of wood we go through at night way down too. Eventually the geese may give off enough feathers for a comforter but by then we might need to think about some type of mattress topper as the mattresses start wearing out. It seems we have to think more about what we'll need in the future than what we can actually use today.

Bean bread is easy. It actually isn't bread per se but more like a dumping or maybe in a tamale type thing. I took four cups of freshly ground cornmeal (wow is that stuff good) and mixed it with two cups of mashed, cooked pinto beans. Then to that mess I added two cups of boiling water that had one half teaspoon of baking soda in it. This makes a dough stiff enough to roll into balls. I dropped the balls in a pot of boiling broth left over from yesterday's pot of green beans with some water added to stretch it out. It takes about forty-five minutes for the balls to cook through but they sure are good. Even better is that it doesn't matter what kind of broth you cook them in, you can even use just plain boiling water though that makes them a little bland.

I split the fried squirrel between Rand and Ken despite their protests; I just wasn't all that hungry, my stomach has been acting up again. I think it's just stress; reminds me of finals week and all the pressure of trying to meet the expectations of people I'd never met.

Speaking of expectations I sure got a shock when we went to church services yesterday. I was willing to stay home but Rand insisted we go and it was turned out a good way to get information on people. Momma O was there, not near as sassy as she normally is but better than I expected her to be. Except for the crying part. She cried all over me and gave me pats and hugs for "saving" Sadie. She wasn't the only one; I could have dug a hole, crawled in, and pulled it closed after me. If some of those folks had had a microscope they couldn't have stared at me any closer. A good thing Pastor Ken was preaching on grace and forgiveness and how it is a thing we are called to give even when the recipient doesn't "deserve" it. I was trying to hang onto his words and not blow my stack at all the people who kept getting in my personal space and touching me. I didn't feel right again until I had a chance to get home and wash up some. I know most of them didn't mean any harm but there were a few I wanted to flatten with a hymnal. It was like being in a dog pack or being back in school; some people want to push you forward and some people want to push you down. I'm not crazy about having either done to me.

I did what I did out of personal necessity, not to be some kind of leader or hero. I don't want people to see something in me that doesn't exist. I'm just me. There's no reason why any grown person couldn't have done the same thing I did. I think the heroes, if there are any in this situation, were the men that took advantage of the fallen tower to grab the weapons and fight back against huge odds. Another example is the women that fought to keep the VRC from taking the young women and girls to that trailer despite knowing … knowing for sure … they would be hit and beaten for it. What I helped do may have been big and flashy, and it may have started the ball rolling, but it could just as easily have had a different result. What I did took the brake off of the windlass, but it was the machinery … the townspeople themselves … that actually got the job done.

I tried to tell folks that but too many of them didn't seem to want to listen. The ones who wanted to make a big deal out of what I did were confused or hurt that I didn't want their attention. The ones who weren't impressed called what I said false modesty to draw even more attention to myself. Attention?! Yuck … attention of that sort I can do without. Me and pedestals … I'd rather jump down and land on my feet than fall off and land on my face.

 **December 12** **th** – Ran out of ink last night and it was too late to make more. I guess it was a good thing because I needed a good night's sleep. Rand and I even skipped listening to the radio for once. Saved us from going to bed worried or depressed. I was well rested when I got up this morning and I'm happy that I was able to get my work done without feeling like I'd wrestled a giant in my sleep. Most days lately I've been too tired to even hear Rand's snoring.

Brendon and Clyde showed up unannounced this morning and helped do some of the fieldwork that has had to be pushed off because of circumstances. Rand refused to be left out of it. When I would have said something Brendon jogged my elbow and said, "Well if you feel up to it Cuz I'm glad. You ride the cultivator; the mules never listen to me when I try to drive them."

I wanted to stomp Brendon until Clyde found me in the kitchen on the excuse of wanting something to drink and explained that it was one of those guy things again. They'd make sure riding the cultivator was the only thing Rand did by walking ahead of the mules to check on laid over grain heads. He'd be riding but the mules wouldn't be pulling at his arms any. I suppose what they did worked but Rand was still exhausted by the end of the day. He was so tired he let me help him in the shower and then didn't really fuss when I suggested he just relax in bed instead of the recliner for a while. This way I don't have to wake him up to get him to come to bed and we only run the woodstove in the bedroom rather than both the woodstove and the fireplace. It may be getting up there during the day but at night it is still dropping into the upper 40s and it is damp. I can't stand sleeping on damp sheets as it makes my legs ache like crazy. I swear, guys and their pride are going to give me an ulcer yet.

It is still early even though it is dark. Rand managed to finish his dinner but not much else and is asleep behind me in the bed. I've closed the bed curtains I managed to rig up to hold in the heat at night and the quiet is giving me time to go back over what has been happening. A few more bodies have been found, mostly families that lived way out that have been attacked by the few VRC stragglers that the military hasn't been able to round up. Major Timble was able to track down a few more VRC and after interrogation I heard they were summarily executed. I'm not sure how I feel about that so I'll turn it over to God. It disturbs me but at the same time there is a sense of Old Testament justice to it. I don't know; it gives me a headache and upset stomach if I worry at it too much.

Sadie's little sister is eating and sleeping normally again though she has a hard time sleeping by herself. She's on a trundle bed in Momma O's room for now. I think Hannah needing her is actually what has helped Momma O hang on and get better when no one expected her to. One day the Lord will call Momma O home but it looks like it is going to be a while longer than what people were thinking it would be. Hannah wasn't … well, she wasn't molested exactly but she witnessed some things that no little kid should.

I took her to the side and asked her flat out what had happened. Everyone was afraid to ask her I guess or was tippy toeing around it too much. I've learned from bitter experience that sometimes you just have to get it out no matter how nasty things are or it sits and festers and … well, things don't go too well.

What she told me wasn't nice but I saw worse go on in the warehouse; course I was older too. Since no other of the adults seemed to know what to tell her I asked her if she, you know, understood what she had seen. Boy did she have things messed up and turned inside out. Part of the problem of course was that her dad was a real creep from what little bit I've heard. No wonder she had started acting like she didn't like Paul and his father and absolutely wouldn't let Pastor Ken examine her at all. Once she had things explained to her and she could ask some questions she didn't seem so afraid any more. I'm not saying she is cured of what ails her, and it's a shame that she had to learn about that stuff in that way, but she seemed a bit more … stable I guess you would call it … by the time the dinner-on-the-grounds was over than when she had arrived that morning.

Paul came by today while the guys were out in the field and asked me what I had done. I thought I was in hot water at first because he looked so serious but he explained what he meant after he got over his own embarrassment. Seems that Hannah had given a rather graphic explanation of events to Sadie and then explained how she now understood what she had seen and was sorry that she had been so mean to Paul and then insisted on making sure that Sadie actually liked … well, what Paul and she did. Apparently the walls aren't quite as thick as Paul and Sadie thought they were. Makes me understand why they started making houses with split plan bedrooms. And why my parents built our house with the block walls on the inside as well as the outside.

Boy did Paul take the long way around in explaining things. After I finally figured out what he was trying to get around to asking I cut him a break and just explained. I don't know if it is a guy thing or if Paul really is that easily embarrassed. By the time I finished explaining he was the same color as the beets that I took out of the jar for lunch. But at least it is all cleared up. I'm glad I was able to help Hannah; life is hard enough without going around with misunderstandings being taken for truth. I've had to iron out a few of my own this past year.

Wish I could say I was misunderstanding what we've been hearing on the radio. The whole world seems to be going insane or a reasonable facsimile thereof. The US, if I understand it right, is in a period of extreme isolationism right now. We aren't trading with foreign countries, import or exports. All available food is being kept in-country which is hacking the heck out of places that used to depend on our exports of wheat, rice, and sugar. We aren't importing stuff which is hacking the heck out of places that reached the developing-nation level because of all their junk we used to buy or all the people that our companies used to employ. We aren't even importing oil because between what is in Alaska and in the Gulf states (Gulf of Mexico that is) we've got enough for the little bit of refining that is going on and it all being reserved for the US military and government agencies; or for keeping the big agricultural companies running so that the government has food to distribute, of course those places have been taken over by the government anyway so it is all the same thing.

Most of our troops have been pulled in from foreign countries with only token presences in countries that have been our allies for decades or in our protectorates like Guam and Puerto Rico. Just like people used to criticize the US for sticking our nose into everybody else's business now people are claiming we aren't doing enough to end the chaos that the world has descended into. According to some of the (few) American radio operators, they are just hacked off that our government no longer supports theirs and that America stopped pumping big bucks into their economies. Me? I think they all give me a headache. When I say that Rand gets grumpy and tells me, "You need to plug into what is going on out in the world more. It's important."

I told him I will, just as soon as I can get what I need to do now taken care of. The garden needs turning and prepping for the January planting. The seat of the pants of two pairs of his blue jeans are wearing through. The barn has a leak in the roof, thankfully it is small and not over where the grain is stored. The wood pile is a lot lower than I'm comfortable with. I could have kept going but I was making him feel bad. He knows that we are behind but I need to make sure he understands that I don't blame him for it.

Frankly the whole country has enough problems to keep us all busy for a long, long time. Groups of people are trying to set up their own ethnic or religious states within the borders of the Continental US and it is a full time job just trying to keep from having things like the Islamic State of Massachusetts become a reality or the Congolese of the Mississippi Delta. Instead of dispersing, groups have been going to population centers and forming their own "governments"; more like warlord leaders is what it sounds like. The problem is that you would think people going to their so-called own kind and isolating themselves would cut down on the violence but it has done the exact opposite.

The government is doing what it can to prevent these states-within-states from getting a foothold but that's like trying to put perfume back in the bottle once it has been sprayed. And this perfume stinks.

And those state-within-states stink too … literally. It seems like every time you hear about people congregating in large groups trying to recreate whatever type of lifestyle they had in their "homeland" you also begin to hear of things like cholera, malaria, dysentery, and other illnesses that really weren't a problem in the US since the early 20th century. Starvation is also a problem because large numbers of people congregated into one area just adds more pressure on the already limited resources.

So far we don't have any problems from bleed over from locations like that. Atlanta is too big a mess for anyone to want to take over although folks claiming to be an offshoot of the Nation of Islam appear to be trying to organize some of the gangs in and around Fulton County. Good luck with that.

We haven't said anything to anybody about what we are hearing which can be stressful in and of itself when you don't have anyone to discuss stuff with. News is leaking out into the community but not from us. No one knows we have the radio. I'm pretty sure that not even Mr. Henderson knows and it may be the one advantage we still hold that he doesn't know about. We're pretty sure he suspects we have hidden resources but we are also pretty sure that he does too. At the moment he hasn't made an issue of anything but Rand and I feel we are entitled to some privacy and don't need to run to him for every little thing. We could probably make a killing peddling the information in exchange for stuff; I think that Rand is waiting to talk to Bill about what we've been hearing on the radio before trying to decide what, if anything, to do with it.

Speaking of Bill and Missy, Bill is on the mend but Brendon says his age is starting to catch up with him with all the injuries he has suffered over the few months. I know he is several years older than Missy but I never really asked. I guess to Brendon anyone older than their twenties is "older." I hope I have more sense than that. I like Bill and Missy well enough but I'm just as fine keeping them at arms length. I mean … well, I'm not sure what I mean exactly. I guess I'm still holding a little bit of a grudge over them not standing up for Rand more. Rand thinks I'm overreacting. I'm trying not to hold onto stuff so much but I've learned to watch my back family or not; not because they out and out intend to be hurtful but because more often than not people just don't think through the consequences of their actions. I might look impulsive but not as much as some people think. There is usually a reason behind my weirdness.

And I guess I'm thinking of other people because something has started up that is driving me up a wall. It's called "visiting." I guess they used to do it in the olden days. The ladies would go "visiting" on certain days of the week to each other's houses. OK, first I'm not a real people person and the idea of sitting with a bunch of other females sipping tea and gossiping makes me cross eyed. Secondly, when you visit you are expected to return the hospitality. Oh my gosh, I just can't handle the idea of having a bunch of people coming to the house. I know that's kind of stupid but people – or so say some of them at the church services – are starting to remark on the fact that I never go "visiting." I suppose I should make more of an effort to at least get over and see Momma O more but I just can't imagine handling a bunch of people in our house.

What worries me even more is that maybe Rand has been holding back his own preferences to make me comfortable. I'd ask him but I'm not sure what I'll do if he says that yeah, he'd like people to come visiting. I suppose I could give it a try but I hate the idea of doing it just to be polite.

 **December 13** **th** – Managed to get most of the mending finished today, even the socks which seems to be a never ending task. I told Rand he needs to start trimming his toenails more if for no other reason than I'm going to run out of darning thread if he doesn't.

Rand felt well enough that he wanted to try milking this morning. He gave me a scare when he rang the bell on the inside of the barn door; it's usually reserved for emergencies. I go running out there with the rifle and he said, "Won't need that just wanted you to see this."

The boar was eating a rat … or what was left of a rat. I didn't know they did that and Rand said, "Babe pigs, especially half wild boars, are omnivores. They'll eat just about anything that doesn't move out of their way fast enough. They eat fruit, roots, fungi, grasses, earthworms, snakes, and rodents. Don't get between a pig and its dinner, they can get nasty. From now on, before you unhitch that gate I want you to look inside to make sure Taz isn't munching on a snack. I know we've had some mice moving in, I didn't know about the rats though."

Rats! Oh yuck. I asked him if we could set traps and he said he had seen some live traps in Daddy's stuff so he would try. "We'll have to be careful though or we'll catch one of your stupid hens in there instead."

Rand wasn't being mean; those hens really do act stupid sometimes. Frankly I'll be glad when spring gets here and we finish building them a real hen house and secure chicken yard, I'm tired of hunting for their eggs all over creation. The few chicks we've gotten really aren't chicks any more … the one little rooster we had didn't survive long enough to get all his feathers in, we're not sure what happened … and the whole lot of them make an awful mess all over the barn. Not to mention Pretty Boy is kind of territorial and being cooped up (no pun intended) in the barn with all the other animals just makes him cranky. He'll still let me pet him but he's taken to flying at everyone else. Even Rand had to bat him down once but Pretty Boy hasn't tried to take on Rand since. Fraidy and Woofer aren't bothered by Pretty Boy either but they seem to sense he needs lots of personal space and leave him strictly alone.

Rand also said he worried about trapping too many of the rats and mice because that is what Fraidy eats. If we take all of her prey she might start looking at the chickens as more than feathered neighbors. Woofer too for that matter; so far I've never had any problems with him getting into the nests or chasing the birds but there was a few times he sure looked tempted. If the weather holds, tomorrow I'm going to give Woofer and Fraidy baths and let them stay in the house at night; but not until they've got some of the barnyard stink off of them.

 **December 14** **th** – Thank goodness it was my left hand or I would be in trouble. Thank goodness I was wearing heavy leather gloves or something most likely would have been broken. Rand is really upset. I guess I'm better off explaining than just sputtering around about it.

Rand has finally decided that right now he doesn't want the extra work of breeding and raising horses. The extra feed we would need is a problem. Frankly the grain crops don't look so good right now. He says that later on in the year he'll take our burros … the ones that came in carrying the stuff that Ram sent and that we apparently get to keep … and breed them for mules. The mules won't be as big as Bud and Lou but they'll still be mules with all those benefits. So anyway, a man that Ron Harbinger knows was looking for a mare for breeding stock. Rand took the mare out of the corral and had her walking in the yard and I was brushing out Lou. Then Rand asked me to put some oats in Hatchet's nose bag.

I've done it I don't know how many times without problems. Feeding time is about the only time Hatchet doesn't give me some type of grief. Well, this time something really set him off and I'm still not sure what. I put the oats in the bag, put it where he can get at it, turn to go … I'm not even really near him at this point. He comes zinging over to the fence, leans his head out and snap! He has me on the outside of my left hand. It was the shock that caused me to scream and then the pain set in.

I didn't know what I was doing but instinctively I wanted Hatchet to let go so I popped him on his muzzle and yelled, "Stop!" Amazingly he did. In fact he acted like I had hurt his feelings. Rand isn't sure if he was playing or if he was frustrated or just what. Horses play rough with one another and Hatchet may not see me as a dominate mare. I'm not partial to the idea of being thought of as a mare one way or the other but I guess it might make a difference if you are a horse.

All I do know is that I was down on the ground and cradling my hand by the time Rand got there and Hatchet was on the other side of the corral nursing a stinging nose. I didn't box him but I wasn't exactly as gentle as I could have been. I'll admit it. It hurt and I was leaking tears. The man, Mr. Houchens, said to bring me up to the porch and let him take a look since he was unfortunately familiar with horse bites having been a breeder for many years.

They took the glove off and my hand was already turning a nasty shade of red and purple, but thankfully no broken skin.

"No broken skin which is a good thing. Don't think the horse really meant to do much more than nip you. If he'd meant to really bite you he would have and you could have lost a finger gloves or no gloves. Knew of a man who lost his nose to a horse. I don't think you've got anything broken but it is hard to tell with them little bones like that. Hard for me to check, your hands are a bit on the small side and is already swelling so we need to take care of that. Looks like you might have a blood blister forming too. That's going to be some kind of uncomfortable for a while and is gonna get real ugly before it starts healing. If you can, have Ken take a look at it but I doubt you need a splint but what do I know?"

Basically the treatment has been to keep my hand elevated and to put a cold compress on it for twenty minutes and then let the skin rest for twenty and then put a new cold compress for another twenty minutes. I've had to keep doing that for a while to see if I could keep the swelling to a minimum. I've also been eating Tylenol but it hasn't been helping much. Between the fevers and everything else we've gone through one of the really big bottles of acetaminophen and there isn't any more where that's coming from as far as I know so tomorrow I'm going to dig out Momma's book to see if I can find a herbal pain killer that I can throw together to save for sickness and fevers.

Mr. Houchens and Rand came to an agreement and he left and came back with his payment (a couple of chickens, some garden seeds, and an old hay baler that was in pieces) and then took the mare away leaving us with things we needed only I was having a hard time not letting Rand see how bad I was hurting. He was really mad at Hatchet but I swear, even though the beast bit me I didn't want to get him in trouble. Rand spent the rest of the afternoon putting Hatchet through his paces. I don't know who was more tired, my husband or the horse. The raw place on Rand's back that we still have to keep dressed was irritated from all the sweating that was done.

Mr. Houchens saw Pastor Ken out on his rounds and let him know about my hand. He stopped by our place before heading home for the night and said it was far from the worst horse bite he had seen and the location is what made it so painful. Nothing was grinding when he messed with my hand but I got nauseous and the shakes just from delayed reaction. Pastor Ken was a little surprised by this which made me irritable. I asked him, "Who do I look like Wonder Woman?"

His answer wasn't exactly comforting. "Well, you do tend to give that impression on occasion." Great, just another continuation of what I went through on Sunday. One of these days that whole impression thing is going to get me into some serious trouble I've no doubt.

After Ken left I thought about what had happened. I wasn't really angry at Hatchet, he's just an animal though if he tries something like that again I might change my mind, but by the end of the day I was irritable that I couldn't get all my to do list finished. Today was supposed to be cleaning day. It's not like the house is really messy or anything. Rand isn't your typical guy, thank goodness, having learned to pick up after himself after getting a dose of a couple of pigpen roommates at college. But, there are all those things that make a house feel really clean that didn't get done … taking the rugs outside and beating the dirt out of them, dusting, freshening and plumping chairs and sofas, scrubbing the one bathroom we use, deep cleaning the kitchen, etc. I know I was being anal about it but it is stuck in my head that I didn't get to clean the way I normally do and it is making me itch. Maybe I do have a bit of OCD in me on top of all my other anti-social issues.

OK, not going there. Don't know why I am so down in the dumps. Maybe I'm having a hormonal moment or maybe I'm just stressed. On top of everything else Rand just mentioned that Brendon and Clyde told him that we were expected for Christmas Day. They are doing Christmas by couples this year and only the little kids are getting individual gifts.

Gifts. I hadn't even thought about it at all. To be honest I hadn't even thought about it for Rand for about a month but things have been so intense lately and my brain has been otherwise occupied. Time is slipping away from me and now I'm going to have to hurry up and finish the leather chaps that I measured out from a pair of Daddy's chainsaw chaps. I made them longer in the leg of course and I've been using Momma's leather stamps to add a few designs on them. I want them to be practical but I want them to look like I put some work into them too. Rand deserves something nice, he's had it rough the last few weeks.

I'm going nuts trying to figure out what I can do for Christmas gifts. Gifts will be in the morning after chores and then around lunch time there is going to be a pig roast. They caught a wild boar over the weekend and have been fattening him up to save the domestic stock for slaughter.

And, if it is cold enough they may even start slaughtering later that day. Can things possibly get any more hectic? Rand started telling me about what we would likely need to do this year since there wouldn't be any refrigeration and I nearly had a panic attack. It's … it's … I don't know what it is since I've already used the adjectives crazy and insane. I've pulled out all of our unused jars and I'm getting them cleaned up and making sure they all have rings and seals. Makes me wish that Ram could pull some of that stuff out of his magic hat; I've still got a couple of cases of seals – Thank You Momma – but not even that is going to last forever the way we use them. We'll be OK for the coming year but I've already told Rand that we are going to have to start drying a lot more of the produce.

Rand asked me to start thinking really hard about what I would need to keep food on the table … from the ground onward. He's going to do the same thing for all of the other tasks around our place. I think the grain underperforming has got him worried. I'm worried too. What will we do for bread flour after what we have in the #10 cans and the barrels is gone? And what will the animals eat if we can get enough even for their feed?

 **December 15** **th** – Change in plans. Brendon came by and said that all the females in the area are going as crazy about things as I am. Some of the older folks got together and came up with a different idea. Instead of adults getting gifts there is going to be a church service, but you have to sign up ahead of time. There will be a big dinner and the Christmas tree from City Hall is going to be set up and gifts for all the kids that have been signed up will be hung on the tree like ornaments. Most of the gifts will likely be practical … socks, scarves, gloves, hats, suspenders … but there will be some non-practical things as well like rag dolls, wooden toys, and the like.

When I heard what was up I asked if Rand minded if I went to see Momma O. He was strangely happy for me to go … I guess he worries that I don't get out more … and told me to take all the time I wanted. He knew I'd be back well before dinner time and it wasn't like I was getting much baking done with my hand the way it was; I couldn't kneed the bread. The swelling has gone down – I followed Momma's instructions for making arnica oil and used it as a topical treatment – but I still have to be careful not to hit my hand or it makes me want to do the two-step and say a few words I shouldn't.

I used a stump to climb on Lou and when I got to "visit" Momma O. Sure enough she was sitting in the parlor and she had other visitors. She looked like she was holding court. I tried to turn tell, claiming I was too dirty to make a mess of Momma O's nice, clean parlor but Hannah – that little stinker – put an old sheet over a chair so that I could sit down.

After hemming and hawing a bit I got down to why I came by. First I wanted to know if Brendon had gotten it right. He had. Then I wanted to know how Rand and I could help.

"Well, if that isn't just like you," Momma O exclaimed. "I knew we wouldn't have to hunt you up to help. What do you think Willa? Food or gift?"

Willa was a middle aged woman growing old nearly before my eyes. "Hmmmm, we need both. We've only had the list out for a day and a half and we already have forty children signed up. We'll like have closer to seventy once word gets out, maybe more. We really need some ideas for quick gifts for the little ones."

I volunteered (yeah, I know, I know) that I have a treadle sewing machine and could make some aprons out of scrap material if someone else could dress them up since my hand wasn't exactly in shape for fine sewing. I also asked them about making suspenders for boys or maybe belts. Or I could hook up Momma's knitting machine to make quick scarves, knit caps, or baby blankets. All we needed was material and yarns.

"Don't you worry about materials. The Ladies' Auxiliary and the Quilting Guild had a bunch of stuff just boxed up that we've kept back. It is more a matter of willing hands. Pastor told us what happened to your hand child. Are you sure you are going to be able to do any work?"

I told her that the knitting machine was really basic and didn't require much dexterity. It had been my grandmothers and I had both the "flat" and the "round" kinds. The flat one was long enough that I could crank out of a baby blanket a day if I put my mind to it. I had two round ones, the bigger of the two could make knit caps for children and the smaller one could make knit caps for babies or make scarves … I could crank out a couple an hour with that one. When they asked me how I was so sure I told them that Momma used to make stuff for the women's shelter every Christmas when I was little.

I went home with a couple of bags of yarn tied over Lou's saddle. I've already made a dozen baby knit caps and three scarves for small kids that are four feet long. Tomorrow I want to get baby blanket made and try to get a couple of bigger kid knit caps made.

While I worked at the knitting Rand and I talked some stuff over. We are going to donate some sorghum molasses so that the kids – both younger and older – can have a taffy pull. And we are going to make some popcorn balls too. We'll add something to the main dish as well. According to the ladies at Momma O's it is a cross between a burgoo and a mulligan stew and is usually a favorite at the big church picnics that were held when they were girls. Sounds good … and sensible; the meat is whatever the hunters bring in including venison, quail, squirrel, etc. and whatever veggies are the most abundant in the winter larder that people can spare. It gets cooked for a whole day in huge barrel sized tubs and you generally eat it with cornbread. Sure made me hungry just hearing about it.

I've got to do some laundry tomorrow but come heck or high water but I need to work on Rand's gift too. After that I'll get going on the other stuff. On Sunday I'm going to turn whatever I have come up with to Momma O and see what she has to say. For now I'm going to down a couple of more Tylenol then I'm going to bed. Rand has got the bed warmed up so the covers shouldn't make my legs ache quite as bad as they have been.


	68. Chapter 67

Chapter 67

 **December 17** **th** – My hand hurt too much to write yesterday but it isn't quite as bad today. Yesterday was laundry and sewing and making a couple of loaves of Pineapple Loaf so that I wouldn't have to cook breakfast this morning. I like to have breakfast baked ahead on church mornings; it saves me time and I'm not as rushed. And if I'm not as rushed then I'm not as grumpy. And if I'm not as grumpy … well, it's all good and everyone is happy.

The sewing was just basically finishing up the knitting projects that Momma O and the other ladies had assigned to me. I'm right handed so running the knitting machines really didn't hurt but making those stupid pompoms for the tops of the knit caps sure did; so did the tassels on the ends of the baby blankets. Let me tell you, there sure are a lot of babies. I guess like my Memaw always said, "You play you pay." It just seems like people would use a little more caution … or maybe they've forgotten how if they ever knew. Accidents are gonna happen, but not all of the folks were married when the babies got made from what I understand. Those aren't accidents, that is just out and out getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

Yesterday's breakfast was biscuits with busted down gravy. Gosh I hadn't thought of calling it that for a long time. It was funny, well funny to me anyway. For some reason it just came out of my mouth when I was putting it on the table. Rand gave me the strangest look and then for absolutely no reason I got the giggles. Rand started laughing because I was laughing. I finally stopped and told him it had been one of my grandfather's favorite breakfast foods. Fried eggs, biscuits, and busted down gravy. The gravy is basically white gravy with ground and browned sausage mixed in. If you like it hot you can use hot sausage and add ground pepper but spicy doesn't do me a bit of good lately so I fixed my plate and then let Rand have the pepper mill so he could add as much as he wanted.

After breakfast I did the dishes up quick while Rand took care of the cows and letting the animals out to their pens or pastures. I got the first load of clothes soaking while I finished up another baby blanket. Wound up having to take about six inches undone when I noticed a dropped stitch. Man was that aggravating. I had just gotten back to where I had started when I had to put the blanket aside and stomp and rinse the load of underthings. The load was bigger than normal because of the long johns that were mixed in.

I loaded the basket and stepped outside to find Rand laid flat out on the front porch doubled up. I just about dumped the basket of clean clothes to rush over but he stopped me first and told me he was OK but pointed off towards the barn and started laughing again. I looked but I couldn't see what was so funny. Eventually he caught his breath and said, "You know that rooster of yours is something else."

"Why? What has he done this time? Tried to take on the cow?" I asked, remembering that Pretty Boy sometimes didn't seem to understand his size could be a hindrance to his ego.

"No. Better. You know them hens we got in the trade?"

"Yeah, the ones you called Jersey Giants 'cause they're so lar … oh. Oh no, he did not. That's not … I mean … I know he courts the Rhode Island Reds we have but surely … Rand! He's too little. He didn't really try to … ?"

"Try?! That's some rooster you've got there!" and he fell over laughing again.

About that time one of the grey Jersey Giants came out of the barn … with Pretty Boy on her … I swear, who would have thought that a midget poultry could be embarrassing. The Jersey Giant just completely ignored him while he tried to … well, you can imagine what he was trying to do. This has to go down as yet another example of God's sense of humor.

The day just went on and on from there; putting laundry to soak and picking up a knitting project, then setting whatever project I was working on aside so I could rinse and hang that load out. Eventually the laundry was finished and I was sick of looking at the needles on the knitting machine going round and round and up and down.

It is never a good idea to go passed your tolerance level when sewing or you are going to start making stupid mistakes so I decided it was time to work on the Pineapple Loaf. I started by stirring one-half teaspoon vinegar into one-half cup of milk and letting it stand for a few minutes while I combined the dry ingredients. You take two cups of sifted flour, two cups of yellow cornmeal, one teaspoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of baking soda, and one teaspoon of salt and mix them together into a big bowl. By that time the vinegar milk is ready and you add two tablespoons of melted butter and then mix the liquids into the dry ingredients; do it gradually or you wind up with too many lumps. Next take one and a half cups of undrained crushed pineapple and add one half cup of molasses and then stir that really gross looking mess into the batter. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree F oven for 35 to 40 minutes.

Rand went hunting for a little while but he came back empty handed and discouraged. "Good thing we are growing our meat because I think people are overhunting the area, trying to keep food on the table. I haven't even seen too many squirrels, have you?"

I told him did the ones out in the garden patch count? "I keep chasing them out because I don't want them burying their stupid acorns out in the rows for me to have to fight as sprouts in the next garden."

"Instead of chasing them I'm going to try setting up some of those traps we used in the barn. I'll see if Mr. Coffey has any good ideas for snares."

Guess it is a good thing that we both like our veggies. Dinner was thick homemade vegetable soup and homemade cornbread. Rand said he had some work to do and it gave me a chance to escape to the sewing room to try and get the last bit of sewing done on his chaps. I had already punched all of the holes using a hammer and awl so all I was doing was threading things together.

We both went to bed tired and sore … my hand and Rand where he was finally returning to all of his labors … but woke up in a pretty good mood. Since I didn't have to cook breakfast I could help with before-Church chores and we were able to load the wagon and be on our way quickly this morning.

Pastor Ken preached a good sermon. I could tell because whatever he was saying people were nodding and smiling and the Amen pews were really going; but, my mind just couldn't settle enough to concentrate. All the things that I need to do kept running through my head and making sure that I had all the knitting projects and supplies to give back to Momma O.

We stood to sing the Doxology and Invitation before I even realized it and then there was a bunch of handshaking and greeting which gave me as good an excuse as any to escape over to Momma O and tell her what I had brought.

"My lands girl! You telling me you really did finish all of that?! Well bless us all, maybe we will be able to get everything finished in time. Mary Lou, woohoo, Mary Lou! You'll never believe it … "

Mary Lou is Mrs. Withrow to everyone but her husband and her "bosom bows." She looks like a good puff of wind would blow her frail body down the street but she's even more tenacious than Momma O … and she has at least a decade of years on her as well. If it is possible to be scared of a little old lady that's exactly what she does to me. Her robin's egg blue eyes can look a hole right through you and that is exactly what she did as soon as Momma O showed her what I'd brought.

"Well dear, we may just need to induct you into the Ladies' Auxiliary though you are a might young for it. We always need willing hands and a nimble mind. That suggestion for suspenders has been a big hit with the other ladies who have all grown more than tired of watching their children and men flashing their undies and hitching up their pants where everyone has lost so much weight or haven't been able to replace their worn clothes with the right sizes."

I beat feet out of there as quick as I could and still be polite. That's all I need is some of those ladies starting to have expectations of me or starting to organize my life and my time. I know they are trying to be nice but I have enough on my plate as it is and the idea of suddenly becoming parts of some ladies' society puts a chill in my blood. What do I know about that sort of stuff?!

I managed to put the finishing touches on Rand's chaps today. I've been lucky he's been working and organizing out in the barn so much. I was so happy about getting that finished that I made a sorghum pie for dessert.

You make yourself a pie crust and lay it in a nine-inch pie pan. Then in a mixing bowl you take five eggs, one-third cup of white sugar, and one and one-quarter cups of sorghum molasses and mix it all together. Pour the resulting slurry into the pie crust and bake it in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 35 to 40 minutes. The pie will set a bit as it cools and then you can whip up some sweetened heavy cream to top each slice with if you have a mind to … and I did since I had enough butter for quite some time.

After dinner and the nightly kitchen clean up Rand and I sat down and did some talking as we listened to the occasional broadcast from the radio in the background. We have a lot to do right after Christmas; no holiday break for us. We need to be ready to start butchering as soon as we get a cold snap and hope it lasts long enough to get it done all in one shot. This means that we need to have everything prepped and ready to go at the first sign of a frost or freeze. Tomorrow Brendon is coming over and they guys are going to take down a tree for us to replace the hardwood that is coming out of our seasoned pile.

I've been pulling and prepping all of my jars but Rand suggested … more like warned me politely … not to show my full hand as far as the jar situation because he thinks there will be non-family at the butchering.

"Don't get me wrong Babe, they are nice people but these days it just makes more sense to hold a little back so that no one can take everything you have. On the other hand you're probably the last person I need to tell this to."

"Rand, don't you worry that it looks like we don't trust your family?"

He got a studied look on his face and then said, "Let's just say that I trust them but I also know them well enough that I don't want to have to worry about someone forgetting and accidentally taking advantage of us in all the hullabaloo that goes on during butchering time."

 **December 18** **th** – All outdoor work was rained out today. Rand was worse than a cat on a hot tin roof until I suggested he help me to do some reorganizing and cleaning. Guy like he suddenly realized he needed to clean all the guns and organize and inventory the remaining ammo and all sorts of other things that didn't involve mops, brooms, and buckets. That's fine, it kept him out from underfoot and I didn't have to create make-work for him.

I knew I had been missing something but I hadn't realized what it was until after Rand figured out a way to charge his old iPod. Music. I'll hum and sing when no one is around but that's about it. I've caught Rand whistling out in the barn. We sing hymns at the church services but it is without an instrument after the piano lost some wires.

"Oh Rand … it's … it's been so long."

"Yeah. I was looking for an old t-shirt to use as an oil cloth. And there it was. I'd even forgotten about throwing it in that box. I've got a little set of speakers for it around here somewhere. If I can figure out how to charge that … well, if you want, we can listen to it sometimes."

We both sat and listened to it for about fifteen minutes and then for some stupid reason I haven't figured out I just started crying. Rand didn't laugh or think I was crazy or anything like that. He held me until I was over it. And then we both just got up and got back to work.

There's always work. When Rand was sick we managed to stick to two meals a day which made things easier … hearty breakfast and then we would have what Momma used to call "lupper" … lunch/supper … with a smaller snack or warm milk at night before I turned down the stove for the night. Now that Rand is back working and trying to get up to full steam he is hungry all the time although he hasn't complained. I can see it in his eyes. My Memaw would have said Rand was born with a hollow leg … personally I think it is two hollow legs.

For breakfast this morning I started using up that cream of wheat that Rand and I found in the bed hide-a-way space. But I just can't choke that stuff down plain so I used it to replace cornmeal and flour in some recipes. For instance this morning I made a ham and cheese frittata that used cream of wheat as the "crust."

Stir together one-half cup cream of wheat, one and one-half cups boiling water and let it stand five minutes. Then add six beaten eggs to the cream of wheat mixture. Next melt a tablespoon of butter and add one diced onion, one diced green pepper and one diced red bell pepper and sauté about five minutes. Then to the sauté pan add one cup diced ham and mix everything up gently. Once you have that done, gently pour the cream of wheat mixture over the veggie stuff in the pan so that it covers everything. Sprinkle some cheese over that … I used some queso blanco I had made this morning … and cook over medium heat for five minutes until the edges begin to firm up. Then you put the skillet in the oven for ten minutes at 450 degrees F.

When your frittata is finished, take it out of the oven and carefully turn it over onto a serving platter so that the cream of wheat "crust" is now on the bottom. Rand really liked his. Probably would have gone better with some sour cream as a garnish but hey, you go with what you have and I hadn't opened the new can of powdered sour cream yet.

Lunch was venison chili straight out of the jar that I had canned it in. Dinner was the leftovers from breakfast and lunch plus I made a cinnamon rice pudding. I felt full to bursting but I think Rand could have eaten more. I swear I don't know where he puts it sometimes.

We'll be heading off to bed pretty soon. I'm glad. Despite being cooped up inside all day I still worked my tail feathers off. Rand did his thing as I said. I spot checked my inventory and added a few things to the list of "wants" and "needs" that we have started. Among the items on that list is white sugar, wheat or wheat flour, and potatoes.

The potatoes might be a pipe dream. Anyone in the area that has them are saving them for their spring gardens and who knows how we are going to get more seed potatoes until those people are willing to part with a few. It might be a very long time before I see a fresh potato.

 **December 20** **th** – Rand got another deer today. And Hoss and Bradley brought by some alligator tail by and looked like they wanted to stay a while and talk. I grinned behind their backs at the look on Rand's face and asked everyone how Gator and Ham Soup sounded for lunch.

"Now see there? I tol' you Kiri'd know what to do wid it. What does Marsha's ol' man know about it anyway?" Hoss said brightly.

Uh oh. Marsha was the widow that Hoss had been courting. Apparently Marsha's father wasn't fond of the match and may have finally managed to run Hoss off for good. It had to be something along those lines. No one with any common sense turns down food these days.

And it wasn't like I was unfamiliar with cooking gator. We'd get it in the diner every so often and it was a big hit. You do need to know what you are doing so that it doesn't taste too fishy or gamey but even with that it is easier than cooking some wild stuff like raccoon and opossum where you have to be wary of cutting the glands out correctly or you'll ruin all of the meat. And alligator tail is actually just about the only meat on the gator worth messing with anyway. You just chop it up and cook it and then add it to your other soup ingredients and cook everything even further until your beans are tender. Wasn't half bad if I do say so myself even if I did get a major case of heartburn afterwards.

 **December 21** **st** – Oooooo I could just spit. I was in the middle of journaling last night when someone started banging on the front door. Rand grabbed his gun and then Brendon calls out.

"Yo! Rand … dad says that it is time and that you need to come on over if you are coming! Y'all still awake in there?!"

Crud. Double crud. Triple, quadruple crud. The temperature had been dropping since yesterday morning but I didn't really think that it was cold enough that we'd have to start butchering. What a time to start this stuff. The Christmas celebration just a couple of days away and I still have baking and other stuff to do. Uncle George's timing couldn't have been worse but frankly I'm too tired to do much more than make a token complaint here in my journal.

It's even worse for Rand. He left last night and told me not to come until after chores this morning. I so did not sleep very well. He didn't get to sleep at all.

But we are home now and he is already asleep, only taking the time to feed the animals before crawling into bed with a mumbled apology. I'm still up baking and trying to heat some of the damp out of the house while I put away the jars of stuff that has already been canned.

Four hogs and two cows were butchered over the last twenty-four hours. That's a lot of meat, but by the time it was divided up between all of the participating families and cooked down for canning and what have you we didn't bring home nearly as much as I thought we were going to. But there is tomorrow and we've got another six hogs and three cows to butcher and we might also try and do some goats if we can hurry things up. Uncle George and some of the other older folks said butchering isn't just about how many animals you've got to do but how long the weather holds cold to let you do it.

Since I'm still waiting on my bread to do its second rising before I put it to bake I'll describe how each hog is butchered. First, you are merciful and kill the hog as quickly as possible. The preferred method around here is a .22 straight to the front of brain. While the hog is still kicking … it's already dead, it just doesn't realize it yet … it is strung up by its hind legs and a big butcher knife is used to slit the throat. You have to do this part quick to bleed the animal out. If the blood coagulates in the meat you've ruined everything.

While the hog is bleeding out, or even before, you are preparing a huge tub like thing by filling it with very hot water. Uncle George's set up had the tub raised above a bed of hot coals. You want the water scalding hot but you don't really want to boil the pig as in cooking it. What you are doing is scalding the pig so that it can be loosen the hair on the hog.

When the hog is bled out, Uncle George ran a wire through the hogs head to form a large ring. Not through the meat but through the bone and gristle. This is then attached to a hook that is on a pulley system that allows the hog to be dipped into the scalding water.

Next comes the scraping part. Scraping a hog is not hard; it's just weird if you've never done it before. After lifting the hog from the water you start pulling the hair out with your hands and scraping with a broad-bladed knife. Since you do not skin a hog you must be sure to get all the hair off. Hold your knife in both hands so that the blade is against the skin and scrape. It's a little like shaving with a dull razor. If the hair is stubborn about coming off, dip the hog in the water or pour hot water over especially bad places.

Next comes the gross and messy part. You cut on the hog's head. You begin by cutting through the flesh on the neck all the way around the bone and then twisting the neck until the bone breaks. Put the head in a kettle with a little water in it. The head can be used to make many things such as mincemeat, headcheese, pickled ears, and the jowls can be cured. Even the brains and tongue can be used for food. Nothing will be wasted although I'm not too sure about eating pickled ears or pig's feet. Daddy did, and really liked pig's feet, but from what I remember they look too much like what they used to be. I'd have to be pretty doggone hungry before I could nibble on something like that.

The next step is to clean the hog insides. The carcass needs to be opened up all the way down. With the hog hanging by the hind legs start at the top at the back center and cut all the way through the skin down to the hind bone. Then make a shallow cut the rest of the way down the hog so not to cut into the intestines. Be sure to cut around the end of the intestines.

With an ax cut the hind bone in half. This has to be done in order to split the hog in half for cutting up. Tie off the end of the intestines with a piece of string. Now cut the breastbone. This is the hardest part because you must be careful not to cut the intestines when cutting the breastbone with a knife. Cut all the way through the skin and find the breastbone and cut it. Uncle George was the only one to do that part because it took a practiced hand.

Next the intestines come out. Open the stomach entirely and put the intestines into a large wash tub. The intestines are saved because of the fat on them and to make sausage casings with. They don't smell like I thought they would but one of the ladies there said it was because they were tied off at both ends so nothing of the … err, smelly stuff … leaked out to be smelled.

The cutting of the meat is next. The carcass was swung to the big butcher table and laid it on its back with the skin against the table so that it splits open. It looked like a giant dissection experiment for biology class.

First to be cut is the backbone which has to be cut apart from the rest of the meat. You do this by chopping with an ax down the length of the backbone on both sides where the ribs join it. The backbone and the tenderloin together make would pork chops, but Uncle George didn't cut it that way. He likes to keep them separate. The backbone has meat on it as good as the tenderloin, so he cuts it up and boils it like stew meat, but with the bone still with it. We did that and canned a bunch of quarts or pork stew.

The way to make pork chops is to saw down the center of the backbone and cut off the extra rib ends about five inches from the backbone. Sawing the backbone is done while the hog is still hanging from the pulley. If there were freezers still available Uncle George said he'd have done it but he considered it a waste of meat right now since we'd have to can or cure to preserve everything.

The leaf lard came next. It is a thin layer of pure fat that is right against the ribs. This lard can be pulled out easily by hand. This lard was put in a pan along with the other fat that was cut off.

Ribs aren't too hard to cut out. They are a large slab on both sides of the backbone. To cut them out you start from the backbone and cut to the outside. Put your knife just under the ribs and cut all the way under them; continue this until you have cut them out completely. Fresh pork ribs is what we ate for dinner although some of them were deboned and canned for later use.

The tenderloin, like the leaf lard, can be pulled out of the hog. In comparison to the other cuts of meat it is a small portion of the hog, stretching along the sides of the backbone. It is also the best portion of a hog. It is only about five inches thick and is what people used to pay an arm and a leg for at the grocery store.

What remains to cut now are the hams, sides and shoulders. Cut straight across to cut out the sides or bacon. Trim the bacon to get off the excess fat. The hams and shoulders are the last pieces of meat to be cut. Just cut at the knee joint to cut off the feet and you're done cutting up the meat. Ham and shoulders are cut and cured alike. After the shoulders, ribs, hams, jowls and sides have been trimmed, the fat is used for lard, and meat which is not used for anything else is used for sausage. Many people put the heart, tongue and spleen in the sausage. You can cut the tenderloin and shoulder for sausage as well but Rand and I wanted all of our hams and shoulders whole and I wanted the tenderloin for canning.

To prepare the meat for the sausage mill, it must be cut into pieces small enough to fit into the mill easily. Mostly lean meat is used for sausage, but on a hog many of the scraps are partly lean and partly fat, like bacon. This is all put into the sausage. Too much fat will make cooked sausage shrink up and leave mostly grease in the pan. According to Uncle George, who as teaching as well as doing the butchering, good sausage has just enough fat to make it juicy. I already knew that from being on the farm when I was little and because we made our own sausage at the diner.

A sausage mill grinds the meat into sausage. It looks like hamburger does when it comes out. The mill is a small hand operated machine with a small hopper at the top into which the pieces of meat and fat are pushed a few at a time. There is a crank located on the side of the mill which when turned by hand, turns an auger inside of the mill, forcing the meat through knives and out through a chute located on the front of the mill. When grinding sausage, alternating putting in lean and fatty meat will help in mixing the sausage to more uniform consistency. The ground up meat drops into a pan under the mill.

While some folks handled milling the pork into sausage, others started making the lard. Lard is made from intestinal fat, leaf fat, and scraps of fat from the butchered hog that are trimmed off from different cuts of meat as it is butchered. The intestines are covered with a layer of fat stretching the entire length of them. After removing the intestines from the carcass, strip them of all their fat with knives, being careful not to pierce them. The best fat for lard is the leaf lard that comes from the inside of the ribs but it isn't enough so you add the less desirable pieces as well.

After enough fat was gathered from the cutting table, it was taken to a little lean to for cooking. The fat was first cut it into small cubes with sharp knives. While that was happening the lard kettle was readied. The kettle has to be about 4 inches off of the ground to allow room for the fire wood. Put a small amount of water in the kettle to keep fat from sticking when you first put it in before any grease has cooked out. Build a fire under the kettle to get the kettle hot before fat is put into it. As the fat is diced, it is dumped it into the kettle. What little water is left will boil out. Stir constantly with a stick or a paddle. As the fat gets hot, it melts down into liquid grease. Stir it constantly to keep the fat from burning. Keep the fire low while in this process because the lard, if a flame is touched to it, it will catch fire and too hot a fire will cause the lard to be brown when it hardens.

Brown lard will get rancid more quickly. You keep dumping more fat in the kettle and dipping out grease as it cooks out of the fat until you have put in all the fat that you have. You keep cooking the lard until all the fat is extracted. Low heat directed to the fatty tissues will melt the fat, leaving the cell structure and the rind. This residue will cook in the hot fat and float on the top of the grease. These are called cracklings. You can tell when the lard is done by the cracklings floating at the top. The fat that you pour into the kettle floats also but the fat is white until it is melted down to just the cracklings. So you can tell when you're done when everything floating at the top is brown.

Dip the lard out of the kettle with a large dipper or sauce pan and pour through a straining pan and a cloth into a lard stand or container that can hold very hot liquids. Cover the lard can and let it cool and harden. The lard is stored in lard cans and I'm told will keep all year. I'll take their word for it but I'll also keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't go rancid. Rand said he'll try and turn an area of the lower cabinets into a lard cooler somehow.

The cracklings get caught in the straining pan and when they cook down they make good munching, like potato chips or corn chips. They have a nutty, crisp brown taste. I remember my grandmother putting them into cornbread and then my uncle – Momma's brother – would crumble a slice of crackling cornbread into a glass of buttermilk and eat the whole mess with a spoon. Each to his own. I prefer to keep my food and drink separate thank you very much.

Now the butchering is all well and good but we can't keep everything fresh and it isn't practical to try and can everything either so the next step was to start the curing process. Curing meat starts by putting the meat on a table in the smoke-house. You must wait until the body heat of the hog has left the meat before you apply the salt. It only takes a few hours for the heat to leave in cold weather which is why it is so important to take advantage of the really cold snaps here in the south.

In the afternoon after butchering when the heat has left the meat, use two parts sugar cure to one part table salt and rub the mixture into the skin side of the meat. Then turn it over and rub the other side. The salt mixture should cover the meat entirely, and should be a thin layer about 1/8 inch thick. It usually takes about a pound to a pound and a half of salt to ten pounds of meat. Uncle George has a lot of this type of thing on hand because he had a food license for preserving meat for resale to the public. The meat has to sit then for about two or three weeks in cold weather to take the salt. When cured, wash the excess salt off of the meat and hang or store. It should then be properly cured.

According to one of the other men there, before sugar cure was available on the market, the old-timers used just plain table salt to cure the meat and then smoked it. Many times the meat wound up tasting very salty because of curing too long and had to be soaked to get out some of the salt. The sugar cure gives a simulated smoke taste. When it came on the market, most people stopped smoking their meat.

After the salt cure the meat will get hung by wire to the joists in the smoke-house. Meat is hung the same way it is on the animal, sides hung with the thickest part up and joints, such as hams and shoulders, also hung with the thick side up. The part the hog stood on is still down. That natural position keeps the grease from dripping out when it gets warm. If you hang it upside down it will lose all the grease. The wires are put in by cutting a small slip in the hide and slipping the wires through the slit. The shoulders and hams only need one wire at the top of the joint, but the sides need two, one at each end of the thick side.

After the wires get inserted and the meat gets hung in the smoke-house, it will be time to build the fire. The fire is built in an iron kettle. The kettle will be put in the smokehouse directly under the meat being smoked. The best type of wood, and almost the only kind used, is hickory. According to the ladies I was helping, hickory smoke has a very pleasant smell and adds a desirable flavor to the meat. Most people use wood chips. If hickory isn't available, sassafras can be used to give a different flavor.

The way this lady explained how it was done when she was little is they would put the chips in a kettle on a bed of ashes and set the wood on fire. When the fire was burning well, they took ashes and smothered the fire so that only smoke came out of the kettle, because the flavor was not in the fire itself, but in the smoke. Since many smokehouses were not tight, walls were sometimes papered temporarily to hold in the smoke as much as possible to reduce the smoking time. The kettle was placed directly under the meat that was being smoked. For instance, the kettle would be placed under the hams. The fire would be tended until the hams would be brown. It usually took two or three days for the meat to turn brown. When the hams turned brown, the kettle would be moved under the sides. In the Winter, the farmer might have three or four hogs in the smokehouse at the same time, depending on the size of his family.

When all the meat was smoked some people just let it hang in the smoke-house, while others took it down, wrapped it carefully and packed it in boxes. Whatever the farmer did with the meat, he had enough to last through the summer and into the next winter when it would be cold enough to butcher again.

I'm not sure what Rand and I are going to do. We haven't gotten that far yet. I do know that Rand intends on curing the meats at Uncle George's place and then bringing it back to ours to hang in our own smoke houses.

The beef was butchered the same way but different and frankly I'm just too tired to write it down. Not to mention that my bread is ready to bake and I need to get to it. Who knows what kind of stuff I'm going to be getting up to tomorrow.


	69. Chapter 68

Chapter 68

 **December 23** **rd** – Spent the last two days at the Crenshaws' place. I'm so tired, but it is a … good kind of tired? Is there really such a thing as a good kind of tired? Well if there is a "good" tired that is what I am, at least now after the ruckus of yesterday came to an end. Today was much better. And no butchering tomorrow or the next day to give what we've already done time to cure so that it can be hung in the smokehouse and cured. After that, well if the cold holds we'll be back at it because … well, better to start at the beginning.

Yesterday morning we were up before the chickens … before anything really should be up and moving if you want my opinion. We had to use the olive oil lanterns that I made out of some old, cracked mason jars to see to take care of the animals who weren't exactly thrilled to be woken up, especially the cows who complained the entire time we were milking them. Putting our backs and minds into it we finished up as quickly as we could and then headed out. It wasn't even five o'clock yet and I fed Rand his breakfast on the wagon seat while he drove.

It was pitch dark except for the two wagon lanterns that shed light just far enough down the road so that the mules could see where they were putting their hooves and so Rand wouldn't drive us off the road. And quiet; the only sound came from the creaking of the wagon, the harnesses, and Hatchet's occasional complaints about being tied to the tailgate by his lead string.

"Shut up horse. You are still on my list," Rand muttered after a particularly caustic whinny. To me he said, "If there is time I'm going to have the boys ride him in the corral. Mick helped me train Hatchet and he knows all of his tricks. He'll watch Tommy. I don't know if there'll be any other boys about or not but Mick and Tommy would be the only two that Hatchet would know enough to let them ride him. Uncle George can use it as a bribe to the boys to hurry up and finish their chores properly and it will give Hatchet the exercise he needs and the attention he is apparently looking for. Got any crumbs left in that napkin? Those were some good sausage biscuits."

I'm glad I know how to make biscuits that make Rand happy, that's something I can say I do well. I fed him mine because my stomach was starting to turn just thinking about what I was going to be doing. I'm not normally squeamish but I tell you, helping to clean the intestines to use for sausage casings just about did me in. I didn't embarrass myself but it was close a time or two. Mrs. Withrow was there and she kept giving me the eye. She's cool though. I think I might want to be something like her when I grow up. You might say she looks frail, but few are brave enough to say it to her face. She might be elderly … she's got to be in her eighties easily … but she sure has a lot of hurry up and go left in her. She ran circles around some of us.

One of the things that I forgot to mention, and which I was kindly reminded of … much to my stomach's tossing and turning … was the blood sausage Mrs. Withrow made to go with our late afternoon meal one of the days we were butchering. Trust me, I know that with the way things are we need to use everything we can all up, but it's going to be a while until I can get my head around blood sausage. Maybe if I hadn't been watching her make it I wouldn't be having problems, but golly gee … snouts and tongues?!

First I had to help make up this stuff called Prague Powder #1. Basically this is a curing salt and it is a ration of 15 to 1 of table salt to sodium nitrate. That gives you a pound of the stuff to work with. Next you put four pounds of pig snouts and four pounds of pig tongues in a kettle and cook them for two hours. They didn't smell half bad either … so long as you didn't look IN the kettle. After they cooked for two hours you let them cool and then ground them up through a one-inch grinding plate; I pretended to be working on something else so I wouldn't have to watch that part.

Once you have the snouts and tongues ground up you grind up a pound of pork skin through a one-eighth inch plate. Then when the meat was finally blessedly unrecognizable it was put into a mixer and mixed well with all the seasonings including one pint of blood, one medium onion that's been diced up, two tablespoons ground black pepper, one teaspoon of thyme, one teaspoon of ground cloves, two level teaspoons of Prague Powder, one teaspoon of ground marjoram, one tablespoon of mace, and six tablespoons of regular salt. Once you have it all mixed evenly you stuff the mixture by hand into beef bungs (large diameter casings).

But wait, you aren't finished. Next you have to cook the stuffed casings for approximately three and a half hours in 200 degree F water (hot, but not boiling). Mrs. Withrow used a skewer to see if the sausage were cooked sufficiently; by that she meant that they weren't dripping blood. Gag! When they were finished they were removed to a container holding ice-cold water, cooling enough that sausage can be handled, and then the sausages were put into a cooler … a homemade one since the temperatures got down into the 20s that night … and they were served up the next day.

That wasn't the only sausage we made … thank goodness … or I would have been going nuts. But Rand actually likes the blood sausage so I'm going to have to learn to fix it, but it won't be this butchering season. I'll do it next butchering season. Really. I will. I just need to convince myself to take one for "the Cause." Rand being just about the only "cause" that I would actually learn to make blood sausage for.

The other sausages that we made were kind of like Slim Jims but not the really hot ones, although I guess we could have if we seasoned them different. The "Slim Jims" were made with beef rather than pork. The thing I learned about some of the smoked sausages is that you have to start with really cold pieces of meat which is another reason why you have to catch the cold weather when you can. You start with ten pounds of beef that is so cold it is partially frozen and then you grind it through a really fine plate. Then you add two level teaspoons of Prague Powder, four tablespoons of paprika, six tablespoons of ground mustard, one and one-half teaspoons of cayenne pepper, one teaspoon of black pepper, one teaspoon of white pepper, one teaspoon of ground celery seed, one tablespoon of mace, one teaspoon of granulated garlic, one tablespoon of granulated onion, two and half have ounces of regular salt, one-half teaspoon of marjoram, one quarter cup of molasses, and six ounces of powdered buttermilk. You mix the heck out of this because the seasonings must be completely even throughout the ground meat.

You stuff the "Slim Jim" blend into small diameter casings; Uncle George used commercial casings for this. Put the casings in a smoker preheated to 100 degrees F and let them smoke for eight hours. Then you have to increase the temperature to 165 degrees F until the internal temperature of the sausages reached 145 degrees F. Then you quickly remove from the smoker, give the sausages cold showers until they are room temperature and then leave them to dry. Once they were dry they could be cut into six to eight inch lengths or left whole until you were ready for them. Rand brought ours home in a loop and then had me cut them in five inch lengths and seal them up in airtight jars.

We made other types like summer sausage, salami, pepperoni, honey-cured bacon (that is still curing), something called Lonzino which is a dry cured pork loin (would have been expensive in the before time), bresola which is an Italian beef sausage, and a German sausage called bauerwurst.

We also brined some meat – mostly beef – for things like corned beef, pastrami, and tasso; but we also made bacon that way. Mrs. Withrow didn't get onto me about wasting time writing all the recipes and directions down. In fact she asked me a couple of times if she was talking too fast. I told her, "No, ma'am. The lady that I used to work for was half Puerto Rican. You talk at a snail's pace compared to Miss Belle and she expected you to get it the first time around or she would give you what for real quick."

That surprised a laugh out of her and she told me, "Well child, I was raised by my German grandmother and having been on the end of that stick myself, I'd rather you get it right than worry about being fast until you do." Maybe Mrs. Withrow isn't quite so scary as I thought at first.

As busy as we were everything went pretty good day before yesterday. We accomplished a lot, at least I think we did. It helped to have so many hands helping out. But then again, that was a lot of animals being butchered; pigs, cows, goats, ducks, geese, chickens. We even had several deer, a couple of pheasants, four wild turkeys, three sheep, and another family brought strings of fish to trade for pork and beef. By the end of the day my brain felt like it had slipped into a Salvador Dali painting where nothing was as it seemed. Too much slaughter, too much blood, too much noise, too many people. By the time we left in our wagon the sun was going down and I was so tense that you could have bounced a penny off of me and made change.

"What's wrong Babe? Someone upset you?"

"Sorry. Didn't realize it showed. No, no one said anything. It was just … a bit much. Too noisy. Too many folks pressing up against me everywhere I turned."

"If it bothers you that much, why don't you stay ho … "

"No! I … I mean no. Sorry. Didn't mean to yell. I've got issues Rand. You know I've got issues. But I don't want them to hold us back. I dealt with it when I was in school. I'll deal with it now. I'm just a little rusty. I won't embarrass you."

"Did I say anything about you embarrassing me?!" Rand asked a little peeved. "Trust me. I understand. I had to bite my tongue a few times with the family. I expect to be ordered around like a field hand by Uncle George but I don't like it. I didn't have to expect to put up with it from some of the others. Just because I haven't been living at the farm for a while doesn't mean I've completely forgotten what needs to be done."

"That bad?"

"Like I said, I expected it from Uncle George. Par for the course. But when Jonathon and Clyde started in on me … I just don't have the patience for it. I'm my own man with my own la … we have our own land and … Well, it just didn't sit well with me."

"Rand, you won't hurt my feelings if you call it yours. I know what you mean and I don't think you mean to cut me out or take advantage … OK, 'nuff said. Next year maybe we can do all of this ourselves since we won't be doing so much of it."

"Maybe. Sure would be nice to be a little more self-sufficient but Babe … regardless of what some people might think, unless you want to go back to living in the Stone Age there is no way to be totally self-sufficient and even Stone Age people traded between tribes or groups or whatever they called each other."

"Oh I know that it's just … "

"Just?"

"Rand? Does it, you know, ever kinda bother you that we have so much … not that everyone knows … and people still treat us like the poor, half-baked cousins they are doing a favor for? We're good for manual labor but we don't quite seem to measure up in the social department?"

Rand laughed and said, "It's not quite that bad. OK, maybe a little. Does it bother me? On days like today a little I suppose. But pride goeth before a fall and we both agreed to keep most of what we have to ourselves. There's a certain cost to that I think and this might be one of them. If people don't think you have stuff they are going to guard their stuff like you are the neighbor that is constantly going to come borrowing something and giving it back broken."

"I guess so. It just seems that we've proven ourselves enough. Do we have to start over every stinking time? And your family ought to know that you … "

"Babe, you forget, you've only known me since I grew out of being the jerk I used to be. My family remembers it all. Sure, I'd like to say that it should be buried in the past where it belongs but I keep trying to tell you but you just don't want to believe me. I was rotten. The only thing different from me and Chase Peters at one point was that I never got into the drugs and I was hung up on just one girl, not that I didn't experiment a time or two or flirt. Our whole crowd was into that, even Julia though she hid it lots better than the rest of us."

"Your Uncle George says you weren't really as bad as you think you were."

"Yeah, well Uncle George doesn't know everything and I ain't going to tell him more. I've got enough problems in that direction. Not that I'm proud of it. It's one of the reasons I needed to leave home to go to school. I needed to get away from the old reputation and prove to myself that … well … I needed to get away from my old friends and habits and make some new ones and prove to myself that I really was a different person. I acted different, but I still had a lot of changing to do on the inside. And now sometimes the old hurts and other baggage still want to get in my head. Like today with the way I felt I was being treated."

"I can totally understand that. I've got bad habits that I'm trying to break too. It's just hard to separate the truly 'bad' from the instincts that have helped me stay alive this long and survive. Sometimes they aren't too different, at least for me."

Rand nodded his agreement and understanding and we kept up our conversation until Rand needed his full concentration to drive the wagon in the dark. I'm glad I know the Rand of today because I don't know that I would have liked the younger Rand too much. On the other hand, it's good to know that he hasn't always been this close to perfect. I think being married to a saint would be miserable; I'd be afraid of never being able to measure up or keep up.

Sleep was actually easy to find that night. Wonder why? (yes, that is sarcasm) I'm glad we got the sleep that we did because the next morning was pretty awful. It wasn't exactly colder but it was damp which had me aching from my lower back all the way down to my feet, even after Rand had me put a lap blanket over me. I don't usually like to do that because the mules sometimes get balky over it for some reason.

The air was cold and calm, at least until we got within hearing distance of the Crenshaw place. Rand and I weren't talking much but then I started hearing a kind of buzzing sound … or that's the way my brain thought of it. I taped Rand and asked him what the noise was since it was too early for the big bugs to be out and he stopped the wagon for a second.

"Uh oh. Get in the back and stay down. Hand my shotgun up here and you take the rifle. We stopped in the tree line right before you get to the farm and the "buzzing" turned out to be some angry people bickering in the firelight of a bonfire that had been lit to light the yard and generate some warmth. A man and woman looked like they were acting as the spokespeople for the angry group. We heard the man speak first.

"Listen Crenshaw, we ain't got nothing to eat at my house. It ain't fair that y'all have all this here and you ain't willing to share it."

"Don't tell me what's fair Lem. You see all these people here behind me? They've been working for their share. Some of these animals are theirs. We're just sharing the load to save some time and effort, but no one around here is getting a free ride. You get out what you put in. Nothing is free in life."

Then the woman's voice rang out as we snuck around back of the malcontents, "That's so easy for you to say George. You don't have babies at home to take care of and you have plenty of help."

"What's wrong with your eyes woman?! I got three grandbabies on the way! And you do got help Lucretia. Or you would if you could keep your man's head out of the jug for more than a few hours at a time. You let him get away with acting like he does. He's drank up all of your money and traded just about everything else you had that was worth anything. Now he spends time on that datburn still … and stealing people's crops to fill it with … when he should be doing better for your family like setting traps or trading work for food. Anything would be better than what he does right now. As for the way things are, we've all helped you as much as we can but our temporary help is all give out. We have our own families to feed too. Your own Daddy promised to take care of you and the kids if you'd just leave Hiram until he sobered up but you turned him down time and again … and now it's too late. Your Daddy is dead and your Momma not too far from it and your brother is done with you and refuses to pour good resources down the same old drain."

"Oh you think you have all the answers don't you George. You're just like my brother … always preaching like you know what's best. Well I'm done listening to folks like you and him. Lemuel is right, it's time we took what we need since no one seems to want to help us out in our hard times."

She was pulling a gun, with her kids standing right there with eyes as big and round as silver dollars, and it happened again. I acted without thinking, but Rand was right behind me so at least I wasn't acting alone. I stepped out of the bushes while some people screamed and ran and did that old trick where you push the back of someone's knee so that it gives out and they lose their balance. I didn't stop there though; I pushed so that she went down face first in the wet clay puddle she had been standing in front of.

Rand had the man called Lem down with a knee in his back to keep him there with the guy squalling and complaining about his bad leg and being on disability and I don't know what all as I tuned him out after the first few whines. Clyde ran up and got their guns while some of the other men took out after the angry crowd that had suddenly turned yellow and tried to run. It was a regular brawl for a little while and feisty Lucretia bucked me off and then we were scrabbling around in the muck and mess. An elbow to my temple dropped me long enough for her to twist loose and make a run for it but she left her kids behind.

"Girl, get up here and let me take a look at that cut. Sit here while I see if it needs sewing." Mrs. Withrow wasn't the kind of woman you lightly disobeyed. She looked around at the mess the yard was in and said, "My word. What are decent folks going to have to put up with next. George! George Crenshaw, them girls of yours need to sit down and catch their nerves. Rand … you find one of these young bucks and you go fetch Lucretia's brother to come pick up these three chillrun and tell him to bring blankets, they barely have underclothes stitched on. Roberta, Clarice … stir my pot so the stew don't stick. Anyone else with bumps and bruises make a line so I kin look you over."

With Mrs. Withrow's … umm, encouragement … ringing in everybody's ears the yard was quickly set to right and work resumed. The children's uncle came and collected the children and Uncle George sent a box of food home with them so long as the man promised not to return the children to their parents until they straightened up. "I been trying to get my hands on the kids since before Dad died. This might just give Momma a reason to keep on living. The kids are too young to be completely ruint yet so hopefully we can do for them a sight better than what they were getting."

Mrs. Withrow whispered to me, "You think you have time yet to run that treadle of yours? I've got some old blankets cut down for coats for those children but there is no way I'm going to get all three finished in time for the tree." So guess what I'm doing tomorrow on Christmas Eve?

My back is killing me. Lifting, hauling, and brawling … what a day. The only thing that has helped is that the weather has warmed up on us by about ten degrees during the day and between fifteen and twenty at night. Uncle George was grinding his teeth a bit but he is hoping that the weather cools back off soon so that we can finish the butchering after Christmas.

As for me, now that the horse liniment that Rand rubbed into my back has started to work, I'm finally off to bed. Rand has promised a good back rub. I don't know what is going on except that it must be the cold weather. I've worked lots harder and longer than this without feeling so wiped out and sore.

 **December 24** **th** – Why do I have to get sick now?! I feel awful. I've got to get over this.

All day I've felt icky. Luckily the only real work I've done is basting those three little coats together and the finished them up for Paul to pick them up when he came by before dinner time. Well, I made popcorn balls but that wasn't that hard except for trying hard not to smell the one batch of candy that I burnt. Rather than waste the mess, Rand put it in hot water and melted it and then mixed it in with Taz and his harem's slop bucket.

I can't be sick tomorrow. I just can't.


	70. Chapter 69

Chapter 69

 **December 25** **th** – MERRY CHRISTMAS! The is the first truly Merry Christmas for me since my family died. Part of it is Rand. Part of it is finally coming to terms with myself although that is a work in progress and probably always will be. I think the biggest thing that made this holiday different is that I'm remembering the lessons I learned when I was little, the real reason for the season. I'm seeing things I wasn't and capable of seeing before. My confidence in the future is returning whether the future gets there in the form I expect it to or not.

I'm remembering that people matter to God. We matter so much that He gave up Heaven to dwell here on Earth with us and then He died for us even when we didn't deserve it. What a huge deal that is and even though I know that we should think about that every day but I'm glad that there is special day set aside where we share honoring that love with people that might not know about it yet.

I should go to bed but I'm still too excited and too wound up.

Yesterday, by late afternoon, I finally started feeling better and after Paul came to pick up the three little coats that I finished for Mrs. Withrow Rand surprised me with a dinner of beans and sausage and cornbread. If I hadn't been feeling any better that would have done it; it was just so sweet I could hardly stand it. Things just got better from that point.

We got a little silly singing Christmas carols, eating the leftover popcorn from where I made the popcorn balls, we drank hot butterscotch milk. We even hung up our socks on the fireplace mantel just because it made us laugh. Then right before bed we stepped outside and looked at the stars thought about who hung them there.

Last night was wonderful. But today has been even better. For about fifteen minutes after I first got up I wasn't feeling too hot but after a slice of Rand's leftover cornbread I felt better. I was over excited and it went straight to my stomach just like always. Rand had me stay inside while he took care of the animals which gave me time to load the popcorn balls into the back of the wagon he had driven to the front for me. Rand had already put a five gallon bucket of molasses in the bed of the little wagon and I made sure everything else was ready.

It wasn't quite as cold as it had been the last couple of days but I was real happy to see that the deacons had finally convinced the majority of folks to accept that a building didn't need a steeple to suffice as a house of worship. The sermon took place in a group of old store fronts across from the park where the light could spill through windows taped up or covered with opaque plastic sheeting to keep the cold at bay. Wood stoves made from metal barrels put off just enough heat in the cavernous old commercial space to get rid of the damp and were vented through former furnace flues.

There were more people than chairs so children sat on laps or on the floor. Even some men wound up there; Rand gave up his seat and sat in the aisle beside me so that the rest of the family could sit together in the same row. Mick and Tommy sat on either side of Rand and he only poked them once when their attention began to wander enough that Uncle George noticed.

Several of the younger children were enlisted to act out the Christmas story as Pastor Ken read passages from Matthew and Luke aloud. I have to admit it was hard not to laugh when little "Mary" hit "Joseph" with a pillow decorated like a sheep after he knocked over the straw-filled manger that held a baby doll wrapped in an old dish towel. "There, there baby Jesus. Don't cry. Momma's got you. Stinky ol' Joseph didn't mean to dump ya on yo head. Boys are just like that." It was even funnier to see Pastor Ken trying not to laugh. When the shepherds started using their crooks to sword fight he finally sat down in the middle of the children and just pulled them around him and finished the story as best he could. By the time he was finished, one of the young wise men had fallen asleep with his "crown" on upside down and half over his eyes.

Then we sang Christmas carols and some old hymns. Aside from _Good Christian Men Rejoice_ and _What Child Is This_ the two others that tugged at my memories the most were _I Love To Tell the Story_ and _He Leadeth Me_. There were plenty of people wiping their eyes after that one.

And then with a tap on my shoulder a young girl whispered that Mrs. Withrow and Momma O wanted to know if I would come help across the street at the civic center. Before I could leave Rand whispered in my ear, "Keep your pistol handy. If they get to be too much just leave. I'll be over to help as soon as I can."

That could have been taken a lot of different ways but I knew it was just Rand's short hand way of saying to be safe in case of dangers and strangers, to not let our friends drive me crazy, and that he'd be over to help with either situation if need be as soon as he made sure the boys couldn't get up to mischief that would get them on Uncle George's naughty list.

I followed my nose through the park and just as soon as I got to the civic center someone threw an apron over my head that had Ladies' Auxiliary embroidered on the bib. I noticed that a couple of women were bickering about what should go where on the tables. I thought it was a little late in the game for that to be happening and looked around for Momma O. She was sitting in a rocker in the corner just shaking her head.

The bickering was fast getting on my nerves but no one seemed to know what to do about it so I used my fingers to blow a time out whistle and said, "Momma O? Mrs. Withrow? With your permission I suggest we leave the main dish where it is at and have some of the ladies serve it so it gets pieced out with the rice in equal portions … one size ladle for the adults and another size for the children. We can then slide these three tables down and put the salads on one end and the sides down at the other. The beverages can stay over by the wood stove so that the coffee, tea, and cider stay warm. The table that has been set up for the cobblers can stay covered until everyone has gotten their first servings. Have some ladies guard that too or it'll be gone before you know it. This way it doesn't take forever and a day for the line to go through and get everybody served. And everyone gets the one plate they brought to use so that the people at the end of the line get a chance at having their share, same as the front of the line."

And so it was and a good thing too because people were starting to file in with plates in hand just as soon as the last dish was uncovered. I don't remember who managed the rice and burgoo but I stuck to the sides and salads table. Reminded me a whole lot of the diner and just like at the diner I came home with a bunch of recipes written down. The one that got the most attention was the fifty gallons of burgoo.

The meat for the burgoo included forty pounds of beef, between twenty-five and thirty pounds of venison, ten squirrels, five good sized rabbits, eight chickens, the pork from two hogs, and five pounds of beef suet. The meat was cooked with water to cover for four hours so that the meat fell from the bones. The bones were taken out and were either feed to the dogs or used to make soup from, I'm not sure. The meat was return to the liquid and then twenty-five pounds of potatoes, twenty pounds of onions, ten pounds of carrots, and the kernels from 100 ears of corn were added and boiled together for another two hours. Then the fire was allowed to burn low and one bushel of tomatoes are added along with four heads of cabbage, then pounds of green beans, and 20 quarts of tomato juice. Next comes the rest of the seasonings; six ounces of black pepper, one and a half ounces of red pepper, six chopped jalapeno peppers, six chopped cayenne peppers, and one pound of salt. Everything is stirred up good and the simmered for another hour.

You would have thought that fifty gallons of something that rich and thick would have gone a long way but it was a good thing that we pieced it out with rice because there wasn't a dropped left to be scrapped out of any of the big kettles by the time seconds were had by everyone who wanted them. Gracious! And no one had to worry about taking home leftovers.

The kids had hysterics over the popcorn balls and we had brought enough molasses that even the adults got in on pulling taffy. A lot of the old folks laughed and carried on like they were kids themselves, reminiscing and saying how this was so like the Christmases they remembered from their childhood. Some who were raised during or in the aftermath of the Great Depression said there was actually more to eat than what they'd had back then. I know there wasn't a family there who hadn't donated something to the pot so that there would be enough for everyone. Rand had taken a deer over, Mr. Coffey donated a hog, Uncle George the beef, and I guess the Harbingers donated the other hog. Everyone else gave what they could.

I was trying to unstuck some taffy from my teeth when Rand started laughing. Before I could take my finger out of my mouth and ask what was so funny I heard, "Well Rand, looks like you finally found a way to keep Shorty from opening her mouth."

I jerked around and there was Ram, grinning like a fool. What brought me up short was there was a small Hispanic woman with him. I was grinding my teeth trying to loosen the taffy and give Ram what for when the woman poked her elbow none too gently into his ribs. "Ramiro Diaz, usted se comporta!"

My immediate laugh at the expression on his face finally broken the taffy loose and I gave my crazy foster brother a hug and was introduced to Concepcion Herrera.

"Oh it is so nice to finally meet you. And please, call me Concha."

I liked her right away but I wasn't sure what to make of Ram so quickly taking up with someone else. Especially after I found out she had a little two year old boy named Amando. They couldn't stay, they were both couriers carrying documents to other stations. Ram pulled Rand aside and was talking to him quietly which left me alone with Concha.

"I know what you must think of me. Taking advantage of Ram in his grief."

"If you want to know the truth, I was thinking it might be the other way around."

She laughed quietly and said, "Maybe … maybe we both needed to go through sorrows to find each other. My mother is watching my little Mando while Ramiro and I finish this courier job. For me it is my last. There have been one too many scares and I have a little boy to think of. Mando's father died of the flu and my mother … well, I was the only one able to bring in money for a while. We have a small storefront now and Ramiro … I … we … we met at the cantina. I was … lonely and just wanted to dance, just one more time. Ramiro got me out of a bad situation and then made sure I got home safely. When he came by the next day to make sure that I was OK we started talking and … well … "

By then she was blushing. I told her, "You know that I'm Ram's foster sister right? Not biological? I really have no say about … "

"He calls you his hermanita and you call him hermano, these days that is good enough. So … you do not … object?"

I just shook my head, "Ram is a grown man. I'm not saying I'm not surprised but I'm not his momma either. If the two of you work together and it's healthy … well, I wouldn't say that my marriage started out the traditional way either."

Before I could put my foot in my mouth Ram and Rand came up. Rand and I walked them out to a converted flatbed pulled by four mules. "Shorty, I wish we could stay longer but we've got to get to our rendezvous point for the next leg of our run. You two take care of each other."

He helped Concha up onto the wagon seat and she got settled with her shotgun. I followed him around to his side of the wagon but he stopped at the back end. "What do you think of Concha?"

"I don't think it matters what I think of Concha."

"OK, then are you upset about Concha?"

"Ram, there isn't time to cover all the details. She told me how you two met. I'm a little … surprised … given what happened with Sherri but … I don't have a whole lot of room, or right, to talk. She seems nice on short acquaintance. But she sounds like she has had it as bad as you. And there is a little boy. Just be careful. Neither one of you needs to get hurt and the little boy … you saw what kids went through in foster care. What if the kid starts to care for you and then you and Concha don't make it?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I've thought. But this time … You know, I did go find Sherri. She didn't want to talk to me. Her family would barely let me talk to her but I got the local base chaplain as a mediator and made it that we needed to end the marriage legally so there wouldn't be problems down the road. She got really upset over that. She'd been using her military ID to get benefits for her and her family. She was shocked when I cut her off. Said some things that were … well, they hurt. She's even more unstable than she used to be. Now I wonder how we ever got together, why we ever got together. It's different with Concha. She is … she's strong. She's spunky. But she can be gentle too. She reminds me a little bit of my grandmother … spicy but sweet. You should see her with Mando. And that kid. I wouldn't have any trouble raising him like he really was mine. She loved her husband and I won't ask her to forget about him. She knows I loved Sherri but she isn't jealous of that; she is the one that encouraged me to find some closure and find out if it was fixable or not and that was after we'd already started having feelings for one another. Just … just give it a chance. Keep an open mind."

"Ram … you don't need my blessing. But if you want it, all I can say is I want to see you happy. If Concha is the one that helps you find that then so be it. Just be careful. I don't want to see you hurt again."

Then he flipped me in the head with his hat and grinned. "I'm not looking for any more pain either Shorty."

It wasn't moments before he was in the wagon seat and they were driving away. I leaned against Rand and had a case of the shivers. It wasn't from cold but from too much emotion and trying to stay in control. Rand whispered, "You OK?"

"I guess. He just comes and goes like the wind and there is always some type of drama. He's the closest thing I have to a brother and I wouldn't give that up but sometimes the worrying and stuff feels like it is going to overwhelm me. Is it that way with you and Brendon?"

"Um, not exactly but I do know what you mean. I was pretty shook up when we found out about Alicia and then to find out she was pregnant … Still is hard to get my head around but I have my own life to deal with. Now let's go in before you get a real chill. You're looking pale. You sure you aren't too tired?"

I was a little tired but I didn't think it showed enough that Rand would see it. I didn't know whether to be insulted that he was commenting on my looks or flattered that he noticed. We walked inside and Rand got pulled away by Mitch Peters and some other men and I went to see how Momma O was doing.

When I got over there she was already surrounded and obviously doing fine so I decided to take the time to get our boxes and stuff together before they disappeared. As I was looking for them Mrs. Withrow called me over.

"You looking for your things girl?"

"Yes ma'am."

"I set 'em back in the kitchen area over by the broom closet. Come on and we'll go fetch 'em."

We walked into the kitchen and found that most of the clean up has already been finished. As we did the last few things Mrs. Withrow asked, "How you feeling child?"

"Fine," I answered not quite sure why she was asking.

"Hmmm. I was worried. You shouldn't be wrestling like you did with Lucretia. It's not good for you."

I laughed and told her honestly that that wasn't the worst brawl I'd been in over the last couple of months.

"Surely but things are different now. Kiri? Child, look at me."

I looked at her but never did hear about whatever she was looking for because Rand came into the kitchen looking for me.

"Babe, it looks like it wants to rain and … Um, oh, how do you do Mrs. Withrow?"

"Rand Joiner, you are as noisy a cub as you ever were." But she took the sting out of her words with a smile. "You get Kiri home. Your uncle is giving me a ride home in his covered buggy and I expect everyone will be heading for home soon to take care of chores. If this is rain heading our way I expect we'll be able to finish up the butchering in a day or two." Then she turned to me and said, "When we do I want you and me to sit down and talk a spell child. You hear?"

I said, "Yes ma'am" and then left as Sadie and Hannah and a couple of other women and girls were coming in to take care of the very last of the clean up and to gather their own dishes."

I have a feeling she is going to invite me to be a member of the Ladies' Auxiliary. I guess I ought to be flattered and I kind of am now that I've had time to think about it. Rand said the Ladies' Auxiliary was one of the big social groups from before but not just anyone could join, you had to be invited and approved by a clear majority of existing members.

If the day had ended there I would have been content but the closer we got to home the bigger Rand's silly grin would get. We pulled in and then once we were on the main forty we pulled down one of the little wagon trails that Rand had made to get to a fallen tree he had been cutting for wood a bit at a time.

"Ram brought you something Babe," Rand said as he started moving some branches that had been piled against the large main trunk of the downed tree.

"Brought me something" was an understatement. Rand kept pulling out boxes and a couple of burlap type bags until the back of our little wagon was full. He then covered the top of that with some branches to take back and use as fat wood in the stove. There were some odds and ends … well, mostly odds and ends like bottles and corks, the odd kitchen knife, a good sharpening stone, some bags and decorative type colored bottles, some jars of specialty food brands like Alessi and Vigo. Then there were some weird stuff like canned conch, Jamaican spice blends, kippers, smoke oysters, canned clams, canned crabmeat, canned shrimp, small tins of octopus and squid too. There were some semi-normal stuff like canned mangoes and boxes of dates. There was some Latin American specialty foods that were a little worse for wear like they came out of a seconds or "dent" store, or maybe from a flea market grocery stand. There is nearly a dozen tins of guava paste and several bags and small boxes of Cuban, Mexican, and Latin American type candies and cookies, again looking like they had come from a second hand store or flea market stand.

The best of the best though were two items. The first was sugar cones called piloncilla. Each cone was about six ounces worth and there was three dozen of the small cones packed in a case. The second was practically beyond belief. It was a fifty pound bag of potatoes. Ram probably meant for us to eat them or me can them but a lot of the tubers already had sprouts trying to grow from their eyes. I will keep a couple to bake and eat but come the first of the year Rand and I are going to plant them and pray that we get a crop that could be worth its weight in gold.

There was also a letter … well, little more than a card really … wishing Rand and I a Merry Christmas signed by both Ram and Concha. By the time Rand and I were finished unloading and finding places to put things the rain was here in earnest and the temperature did feel like it was dropping. We lit the fireplace to chase away the chill and popped some popcorn since neither one of us was hungry enough to bother cooking a full meal.

I hadn't figured out how to give Rand his present yet so when he went outside to check on the animals one last time before locking the barn down I got the chaps out and wrapped them quickly in the shirt I had been working on but hadn't had time to finish and put it on the coffee table with a bow stuck on it and then ran to the bedroom because I was suddenly too embarrassed to watch him open it.

He walked into the bedroom carrying his unopened package and the sock I had hung up last night. "You beat me to it. I know it isn't much. I had meant to get more of them done but I'll add to it and next Christmas you'll have a whole set. Let's open them at the same time."

He kissed my cheek and put the misshapen sock in my hand. I reached into my sock and pulled out three packages. Each one held a wooden figure. I couldn't help but smile. Rand had carved the first three pieces in our own manger scene. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph out of oak, cedar, and pecan wood. I ran my fingers over the smooth surfaces.

I looked up as Rand exclaimed, "Hey! Just what I needed! Did you make these?"

"Um hmm. They should fit, I took the pattern from a pair of Daddy's old chainsaw chaps but made them longer on the in seam. I'm sorry I didn't finish the shirt."

"Even half finished it is wonderful. Um, do you like what I made?"

"Oh Rand, they're beautiful. I hope you don't mind but I'd like to put them on my dresser rather than just having them as Christmas decorations."

He smiled and reached over and kissed me pretty good so I guess he doesn't mind.

We've been relaxing ever since but I think it is time we both headed off to bed. The wind has picked up, I can hear it even with the shutters closed. Rand said it will likely be at least another twenty-four hours until it is cold enough to butcher again so hopefully we'll have at least one day to get organized before we have to get back at things.


	71. Chapter 70

Chapter 70

 **December 26** **th** – Too wet and windy to butcher. Part of me is glad. It took me a long time to get going this morning. As much as I liked the burgoo yesterday I think it was too rich for me or I should have eaten last night or something. I woke up fine but right in the middle of cooking breakfast the smell was just too much for me. I had to keep swallowing and I was a whole cup of tea before my stomach settled down.

That wasn't the worst of it though. I was fine and dandy again and Rand and I had just finished eating breakfast. I picked up the plates to take them to the dish pan in the sink and when I turned … it had been a long time since I'd had something like that happen. It felt like someone stuck a hot poker in one of the deep scars that is down low on my stomach, the one that aches sometimes during my monthlies.

If the plates had been anything other than speckleware they would have shattered when they hit the floor. As it is my favorite tea cup is history. I went from standing up and joking with Rand to on the floor on my knees, forehead on the floor trying to catch my breath without moving any more than necessary.

Rand knocked his chair over backwards rushing to my side. His face was white as a sheet when I was finally able to turn my head and look at him square.

"I'm all right. Just help me to stand up please. I could … oh geez, that stings."

"Just hang on Babe. I'll run to get Ken and … "

"No! No. I know what it is, it has just been forever since it happened. Just help me up."

He wouldn't hear of me sitting in the chair and picked me up and carried me to our bed. "Rand, you don't need to … oh … oh … yeah, that feels lot's better. Just help me … yeah … like that."

"What the Sam Hill happened?! Are you sure you're OK?"

"Yeah. I have a deep scar on the left side and I guess I turned the wrong way and … the scar gets kind of hard or set I guess you want to call it. When I turned I guess I stretched it and it caught me off guard."

"Which one?"

"Hey. Hey! Your hands are cold! The one on my left. No, not that one. It's further down. Uh … yeah … um … that one. Rand! "

"Stop blushing Babe, you make me feel like a dirty old man and I'm your husband. Does it still hurt?"

"I can't stop myself from blushing, that's just me. And yes it is still sore so stop poking. No! You are not going to go get Ken. Having you look at these nasty scars is as much as I can take. I refuse to try and explain … "

He got down in my face and said, "Every … single … scar … every one of them … is beautiful to me because they mean you survived. That's all I care about Kiri. If you think I like the idea of some other man seeing you I can promise you I'm not but Ken is a doctor … or as close to one as we've got around here. And I am going to go get him, this could be your appendix, you haven't been feeling too hot."

"The appendix is on the right side. And I don't have one. I don't have a spleen either. I'm also missing about a yard or so of my intestines and a few other bits and pieces on my inside. I'm telling you Rand, I'd know if I was really sick. I've just been wound up and it settled in my stomach. I might need to lay off drinking so much tea or something. And we haven't had as many fresh veggies the last few weeks as I got used to eating. I might need to add some fiber or something to my diet if I can figure out how. Really. Please Rand. I … I … I really don't want to have Ken … you know … see or … touch … me. I … please Rand. Please don't. I promise that I'll be fine."

We went back and forth for a few more minutes which gave the rain time to come back and really start coming down. "All right but if it happens again Kiri, I swear I don't care if it is the middle of the night and I have to ride all the way to Blitchton to get him. You scared me to death. AND you aren't doing anything else but staying in this bed."

"What?! That's … that's … "

"That's the way it is going to be. As a matter of fact," he said taking off his boots. "I'll stay here to make sure you don't sneak off and find something to get into. Getting you to sit still is worse than trying to harness a bumble bee."

So guess what? I've been stuck in this bed listening to Rand's snores most of the day. The first time he fell asleep I got up to go get my crochet bag and turned around to find him standing there with his hands on his hips. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack on purpose?"

He marched me straight back to bed. I eventually fell asleep myself but woke up when my scar started twinging again but it was nowhere near as bad as it was this morning. Rand had gotten up and taken care of the animals and heated up a jar of chicken broth and made a pan of cornbread. He did let me get up and eat because neither one of us can stand crumbs in the bed but after lunch we went straight back to bed. Wasn't anything we could have done outside anyway with the way it was raining. And it was a cold rain too which just made it nicer to stay inside.

It felt like I was starving to death by dinner time. Rand was so excited by that that he let me help him fix venison stroganoff using some of the powdered sour cream and mushroom soup base out of our long term storage with some canned venison and we served it over some of the LTS egg noodles. I don't know why I was so hungry all of a sudden, it's not like I'd done any work today.

Rand checked on the animals, none had really wanted to go out into the rain and I couldn't blame them. Even Woofer and Fraidy decided to stay in the barn where it was warm and Rand had given Woofer a bone he'd snuck off from the pile left over from butchering the cows. Rand told me it was no time before Woofer had it cracked open and getting to the marrow inside. Makes me realize that I never want a dog to really bite into me.

Rand is in long johns and I'm in an old flannel gown that used to be Momma's. It's weird looking in the mirror, I can almost see her in my own reflection. Rand is banking the fire in the woodstove so I guess he wants to turn the lamp off and get some sleep. Now that it has stopped raining the cold is really setting in again and Rand says that he's going to go to Uncle George's tomorrow.

Hmmmm. He said that "he" was going to Uncle George's. I have a feeling it is going to take some convincing to get him to not pitch a fit when I decide I'm going too.

 **December 27** **th** – Today would have been Daddy's birthday. I don't know how I could have let it slip up on me like this. I cried a little but not where Rand saw although I wound up having to explain anyway when he noticed my red nose. I could have told him it was the cold but that would have been lying.

And it was cold; glory was it cold, down in the twenties easy. It got a little better once the sun came out but it never did get much above forty degrees. Uncle George said cold snaps as mean as this one were rare; it was every bit of twenty-five or thirty years since we'd had like this in December. Usually the worst weather is in January. The burn barrels set around the yard helped but the heat didn't radiate far. And the men scrubbing the hogs roasted on one side and froze on the other.

I looked around for Mrs. Withrow but didn't see her. Mick caught me looking and said, "Missus W is sitting with some lady that just lost her husband over in Poucher's Corner. Some kind of kin to her husband is what Dad said. Kiri, Rand said you were the one that knitted the scarf. I … I know I'm thirteen and was too old for the Christmas tree but … anyway I wanted to say thank you. Tommy likes his too and because they are different colors we won't get them mixed up. Tommy and I … we meant to make you something for Christmas but … um … "

"Thank you and it's OK. You were some of my first friends, that was like an early Christmas present."

I don't know who was more embarrassed him or me, but he was being sweet … for a thirteen year old boy. I kept forgetting how old he was because he was small for his age. Rand told me that Mick was a preemie and has always run small for his age. Tommy was two years younger than him and slight for his age too. They may have been small for their age but they sure did their share of the work. They lifted toted and still managed to find some time to walk Hatchet around. Rand didn't want them riding him because of the cold weather but did lead him around the corral more than a few times and then rubbed him down and brushed him out before putting a blanket back over him.

We all worked hard today. It took me forever to get Rand to stop checking up on me. Alicia finally asked what was wrong and I had to tell her.

"Ouch! Are you sure that's all it was?"

"Yeah. I wasn't even sick this morning, not really, and I'm hardly sore. I swear you would think that my head had fallen off the way he is carrying on."

Alicia got a laugh out of that and next time Rand came to check on me she busted down in giggles which left Rand looking at her like she'd lost a few IQ points which only made her giggle harder.

It wasn't all fun and giggles. The work was hard, harder than it was before because we were all bundled up. And on top of that that strange man named Lemuel came back claiming Rand owed him "compensation" for hurting him because now he wasn't able to work.

Rand, not much in the mood for it asked, "Not able to work huh? So what was your excuse before? You said you weren't able to work then either. And you seem to be walking pretty good 'cause I know for a fact that you live a good three miles from here even cutting across fields."

Lemuel got all puffed up and squeaked and squawked but in the end he went away empty handed and acting pathetic. Bill came over as I was taking some fat to the lard kettle and told me, "You make sure Rand watches his back. That old boy has been trying to pull something over on anyone that he can. We won't let him trade at The Shack anymore until he pays the tab he ran up. He's conniving and has probably made his way in life like this up 'til now and still can't figure out why it isn't working any more." Great, like I need something else to worry about.

We brought home all of our jars today. Uncle George was worried about them freezing out in the barn. Honestly I'm glad I didn't have to ask him for them because I wanted to bring them home anyway. It was getting so cold it was hard to work so we left the meat to hang in the near freezing butcher shed, packed up our stuff and came home a couple of hours earlier than we had expected to. We also brought home the cured hams and shoulders and they are hung in the smokehouse … with the thick doors padlocked shut.

 **December 28** **th** – Busy, busy, busy. Mrs. Withrow kept saying we needed to sit and talk but there wasn't any time and when one of the kids – a boy named Robert - got a bad splatter with hot lard, she was busy tending to him up until it was time for us to leave. Too tired to write more. Gosh this butchering work is hard.

 **December 29** **th** – Was able to avoid Mrs. Withrow again. I'm rethinking whether I want to be in that Ladies' Auxiliary. I've been working on my list of things that I need to do as soon as the butchering is over with. No way am I going to have time to be involved in some social club.

 **December 30** **th** – Ahhhhh. We made it. Today was the last butchering day. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and Rand and I plan on staying at home and working the kinks out of our joints. Besides it is warming up a little bit and I'm sure the animals need to be outside for a few hours of daylight beyond what comes in from the loft windows. And you don't want to know how bad the barn needs to be raked out and fresh hay and bedding put down. Ugh.

 **December 31** **st** **–** They're crazy. Every one of them is flat out crazy. No way. Absolutely, positively no way it can be true.

 **January 1** **st** – I think … it can't be true but even Pastor Ken … what a way to start the new year. How could this have possibly happened?!

 **January 2** **nd** – Rand is upset. He thinks that I don't want to be. It isn't that. It isn't that at all. I mean, I'm not sure how I feel about it but it's not because I don't want to be. Now his feelings are hurt and I'm upset that he thinks that I don't want his … I still can't say it. I just …

 **January 3** **rd** – OK, this is ridiculous. Well, not ridiculous exactly but … pretty unbelievable. OK, maybe not unbelievable but it sure as heck is shocking. I'm too young. Aren't I? What if I'm not good at it? I could totally mess of some little innocent …

I guess I better start at the beginning before I get so wound up I don't make any sense at all. I'm pretty close to that as it is.

On New Year's Eve Rand and I mapped out some work that needed doing. We put some compost on the garden and plowed it one more time. We marked all the rows and put mulch between them. I had plans to put the first seeds in the ground on the first, kind of like a good luck but I've been so turned around I would have planted the hoe and put the seeds in the shed.

I was feeling really good and then Mrs. Withrow, Momma O, Mrs. DeLois, and Pastor Ken all show up a little after lunch. I knew right away that something was up but I couldn't begin to imagine what would bring out the big guns like that. Pastor Ken said he was going to go say howdy to Rand who was checking the fence around the cow pasture where a limb had come down on it. That left me alone with the ladies.

None of them had ever been back to our house much less inside and I was nervous about it but it didn't seem to be the house they were interested in though they were polite and nodded about how nice and neat everything was.

Momma O started by saying, "I've heard you've been missing a certain talk and on purpose too if I don't miss my guess."

Mrs. DeLois tried to come to my aid by saying, "Now Momma … "

"Don't Momma me DeLois, this can't continue."

All I could do was sit there with my mouth hanging open. I couldn't imagine what I had done to get into trouble this time and I was racking my brains trying to think of something to say.

"Don't bother denying it child. And no, you aren't in trouble, at least not the kind you seem to be thinking of," Mrs. Withrow chided.

"Well, I'll admit I don't have a clue what is going on. This can't be over the Ladies' Auxiliary surely," I stammered. "I don't want to be rude but, if it isn't that what am I in trouble for?"

"Child, didn't I already say you aren't in trouble? But … my lands. Kiri Joiner, I'm gonna ask you something and I don't want you getting all pruned faced at me for prying. Not a one of us mean any harm. But it seems to me … well … you've had a rather … unconventional upbringing the last few years and you might not … Oh for Heaven's sake, I'm gonna feel plum foolish if I'm wrong. Kiri you … well, have you been feeling … unwell lately?"

I sure didn't know what business it was of theirs but I could think of a good enough reason not to tell them. "I've been a little … busy … and when I get stressed out it … settles in my stomach. I still don't see … "

"Girl, don't get so defensive," Momma O said with a snort. "I could hardly believe it myself until I took a good look at you and realized … Girl, have you had your monthly lately?"

"What?! Now, you're getting a little personal. What has that got … to … … do … Oh," I finally laughed. "I'm sorry Momma O but you are off base there. I'm not exactly … well … regular as a clock … but I'd know if my calendar was off."

"DeLois, you tell her."

"Momma! Honestly!"

"Yeah, I am your momma and I'm telling you to tell her."

"Oh for goodness sake. Kiri, every once in a while … " Mrs. DeLois smiled and then said, "Kiri, every once in a while God likes to show his sense of humor and surprise us. I was five months along with Paul … regular as clock work too until that point … and no one was more surprised than me. He was an answer to prayers after … well, we hadn't thought we'd be able to have any more and then suddenly I had four month to enjoy being pregnant and get ready for a new baby."

I didn't want to hear it. None of it. They kept trying to get me to think about it and to my absolute horror they'd even carried their suspicions to Pastor Ken. Everyone, Rand included, wanted Ken to examine me. Well I refused and there was a bit of a row over it. By the time they left I was furious; so angry I busted out crying and was pretty zoned out for the rest of the day. Rand didn't know what to do. He looked like he'd walked into a wall and the wall had won. We didn't even get to enjoy the New Year's Even plans we had made.

Next morning I did nothing but puke I was so upset. Or at least that is what I kept telling myself. And then Rand started in on me. It can't hurt to let Ken examine me. It would set our minds to rest. Don't I want to know for sure. On and on and on. By lunch time we were barely talking.

Ken showed up as I was doing the lunch dishes and I saw him and Rand talking out in front yard. Rand was mad at first but as Ken talked to him he settled down and then got that worried look he gets. I knew it was because he was worried about me and I felt bad enough about some of the things that we'd said to one another that I stepped out onto the porch and just said one word before walking back in. "Fine."

All I wanted to do was cry and I guess Ken figured out fast that I wasn't going to be an easy patient.

"Kiri, I understand … "

"You don't understand anything. Look, just get whatever you need to do over with."

"Kiri, it doesn't work like that I need to ask you some questions. If you'd be more comfortable with Rand here or with another woman … "

"Isn't this bad enough?! Just ask your questions."

"OK. When was the last day of your … "

"Well, that's a pretty useless question. Like I tried to tell everyone yesterday my calendar is just fine. I feel fine. There is nothing wrong with me."

Ken finally sat back and crossed his arms. "Being pregnant is not the same thing as having something wrong with you. And while it isn't normal to have a pseudo-cycle after you've gotten pregnant, it isn't abnormal either. One or two months of break through spotting is actually what is normal for some women."

"I told you … "

"Yes. I heard what you said. Kiri, for a person your age your body has taken a lot of abuse. Rand told me that sometimes your scars even still hurt. In particular you had a recent episode that dropped you to your knees."

"Well gee whiz, I told him not to say anything."

"He's worried about you."

"Look. It hasn't happened in a while but it has happened before. I stretched the scar the wrong way or something. No biggie."

"Kiri. Just let me do an external exam. If I don't find anything then we'll just keep a watch on things and see how they go. I'd give you a pregnancy test but there aren't any left in town. But since there aren't we're back to the old fashioned way of doing things."

So I figured I might has well give in and just get it over with but I refused to do it gracefully. It was pushing on areas a little lower than I was at all comfortable with and taking his time about it. When he pulled out that little tape measure thing I was starting to get really bothered. He wrote a few things down on his note pad and then had me sit up.

"Kiri. Are you absolutely positive that your cycles have been normal?"

"I told you they were. Well, one was a little late a couple of months ago but everything has been normal since then. It was just nerves because of the bandits and some other stuff that was going on."

"Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that … Kiri you better sit down."

"I don't want to sit down. This is getting to be ridiculous. Come on. Surely I'd know?"

"Kiri, I measured you three times and each time it is saying that you are fourteen weeks along."

That's the last thing I remember until I came around to hear Rand hollering at Ken and then calling my name while he sat in the floor holding me. All I kept thinking was that he better stop it because my pants weren't zipped and they were sliding down.

I finally was able to get his attention and all three of us sat in the floor, me in Rand's lap, while Ken explained that when I thought I had stretched my scar by turning wrong it was likely my insides putting pressure on the scar. This was his big concern, that without a sonogram or whatever you call 'ems that my messed up insides might start giving me problems and he wanted me to stop lifting and tugging and pulling stuff. I nearly hit the roof again but instead started crying because I had a whole garden to get planted and there were so many other things we needed to do.

I don't even remember Ken leaving I was in such a daze. I barely remember going to be to be honest.

Next day wasn't any easier. I made it worse by sliding back into denial. Rand wanted to go tell his Uncle George and I just came all unglued on him. How could he and it's no one's business and I don't like to remember what all I said. I was pretty awful and I've spent most of today apologizing and then crying about it. I'm lucky that Rand has decided to put it all down to unexplainable female hormones and is giving me a complete pass on being such a donkey's south end.

Truthfully it was really bad yesterday. Rand even slept on the sofa because we'd had another bitter argument when he wouldn't let me go out and help in the garden. He got pretty nasty that time asking me if I was trying to do something to lose the baby on purpose or something. I wasn't but what hurt was that he could think I would. He said he really didn't but was just so scared the worst thing he could think of came out of his mouth before he really thought it through. I guess we are both pretty shook up over it.

I had a bad dream in the middle of the night and woke myself up but when I rolled over and remembered that Rand wasn't there I just couldn't stand it anymore. I got up and fumbled my way into the living room and then started sniveling and crying and woke Rand up. He said he wasn't asleep but he was snoring loud enough that I didn't need a lamp to find him in the dark.

Rand carried me back to bed and we talked the rest of the night and ironed some things out. I fell asleep after he got up to take care of the animals and let them in their pens. I woke up nauseous and it took me a while to get started. By the time I was dressed Ken had come by again and he and Rand were on the porch talking. I felt really bad and apologized for the way I had been acting.

"Don't even worry about it. It was a shock and everybody has to come to terms with shocks in their own way and in their own time. But now that you've really accepted things Kiri I want to sit down and talk about a few things."

So we did. "If this was before I'd be able to give you lots of attention and prenatal vitamins too. But its not and I don't have a thing I can give you. Pregnancy isn't a sickness but you still need to be sure and treat yourself right because treating yourself right means you're treating your baby right. I want you to drink at least an full glass of milk a day. And eat some of that cheese you make as well. You need to make sure and keep your calcium up. If you get a chance to eat liver, do it. That will be your iron and your folic acid. Speaking of folic acid, here's a list of foods to eat if you can get them. Folic acid is very important with fetal development. Rand, here is a list for you. She experiences any of these symptoms come and get me lickety split. But for those last ones on the list don't leave her alone. You'll have to work out how you are going to pull that off. I'll add you all onto my regular rounds but you've got a long way to go before this baby is going to be ready to be born."

"I still don't understand how I can really be three months along without … I mean … " I stumbled to a stop.

Rand asked, "Yeah. She's as small as she ever was. Missy, Laurabeth, and Alicia were all looking pregnant by this point."

"Well, Kiri works hard and some of that is going to have to stop, or at least slow down some. Nature will take care of that shortly but you need to start doing it now. And some of it may be that scarring." He looked at me and said, "If you feel any more of that stretching I want you to stop what you are doing and sit down for a bit. We don't know how your previous injuries are going to impact this pregnancy. You're young and healthy and you have a good head on your shoulders. Use some commonsense and says your prayers. Faith will get you through no matter what happens. And no, get that look off your face. I didn't mean I expect anything bad, just that we don't know and because we don't know we can't assume anything. We are just going to have to have patience. The fact that you haven't had any problems up to this point is a good thing."

After the pastor left Rand asked, "It's a pretty fine day, you want to clear the cobwebs away and go for a buggy ride?"

We hitched Bud to a little two-seater surrey similar to Pastor Ken's that Rand had managed to refurbish. The buggy top was still in bad shape but the rest of it had been fixed. It looked repaired, but repaired by someone who cared about how it looks if you know what I mean. The seat was a lot better than the wagon seat that is for sure.

We drove by Momma O's and I asked Rand if he'd turn around and let me stop for a minute. Turns out that Mrs. Withrow was visiting with some of the other Auxiliary ladies; they were trading seeds. I stuck my head in the parlor and nearly pulled it back out again but I'd been seen. I didn't need to say a word. Mrs. Withrow and Momma O both came over and wrapped me in hugs and wouldn't let me even get my apology out.

"Don't you worry about it child. We understand, maybe better than you think. Are you out buggy riding?"

"Yes ma'am. I don't want to leave Rand standing too long. I just wanted to say … "

"I told you not to worry about it. My lands you're a hard headed girl. I'm not so old that I don't remember what it was like. Now go on and get. He's looking like he's needing his feathers smoothed down."

I got off lighter than I should and that's a fact. I would never been forgiven like this before. Aunt Wilma either ignored me or froze me out until she decided I'd had enough and that she was still giving me more leniency than I deserved. I was rotten to her sometimes but maybe I would have been able to conquer some of what was wrong with me if she would have been a bit different in the way she handled me. Who knows?

Rand and I knew it would be all over in no time now so we took off for the Crenshaw place to try and beat the gossips. Uncle George sat down on a hay bale and just said, "Well, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later." And then he shook Rand's hand all manly and stuff. Guys. I guess it means something but don't ask me what. Missy of course had something to say and I don't know who was blushing more, Rand or me. Bill chucked her under the chin and then whispered something in her ear and then it was Missy's turn to blush and she left us alone after that. Alicia couldn't have been more pleased and Laurabeth was nice about it too. Mick and Johnny looked like their eyes were about to fall out of their heads.

It's a good thing that we came when we did because sure enough before we left someone had said something to someone and we were getting congratulations from folks arriving to go into the trade shack. I don't guess I'll ever understand how gossip travels as fast as it does. Don't bother with a telegraph, just tell a busybody.

And now we're home and snugged up. Rand says we'll put seeds in the ground tomorrow but from the look on his face there are going to be a few new rules that I'm not sure but that I have any choice but to live with at this point. Rand's being so careful of me and that's just about to drive me up a wall. We're going to have to do something about that. I may be pregnant but I'm still me. I don't think anything is ever going to change that.


	72. Chapter 71

Chapter 71

 **January 4** **th** – The thoughts in my head are too big. And Rand is driving me up a wall. He acts like I'm going to break or something. He tried to set me a _bedtime_. He freaked out because the smell of his coffee had me running out the door and gagging. I was petting Fraidy and he started pointing at that list Ken gave him, twitching and saying something about taxoplassomethingorother. I'd finally had enough when I took the dustpan outside to empty it and then bent over to pick out one of my bobbie pins that I had accidentally swept up. Talking about swept up … he ran over, picked me up and took me into the house asking if I was all right so fast over and over that I couldn't get a word in edgewise to answer him. When he finally put me down on the bed I grabbed a pillow and smashed it on his head. That got him to stop talking long enough for me to ask him what his damage was all of a sudden.

As much as this whole having a baby thing has my nerves in a knot I'm beginning to think that Rand is taking it harder than I am. I'd laugh if I wasn't afraid that he was going to give himself a stroke or something. I mean, all of this happened and it wasn't even lunch time yet.

Rand knew it was bad when I was the one pushing for us to talk it out. I hate confrontations. I'm always afraid he is going to misunderstand me and I'm going to say the wrong thing and make whatever the problem is worse. But this time I really was at the end of my rope. He was making me so nervous I itched all over like I was about to pop out in hives.

I asked him how I was suddenly a different person from the one I was a couple of days before. It was hardly a week since I'd been in a tussle with that Lucretia woman.

"God Kiri, don't remind me. What if you'd been hurt?!"

"I did get banged up. It wasn't the freaking end of the world Rand. I'll be more careful from here on out. I know I need to and I will be to the best of my ability. But … you can't lock me up and keep me from living. They tried to do that to me after the accident. It didn't help me, it only hurt.. I mean, I know I don't have all the answers and haven't got all this being pregnant stuff figured out, but I know if … if I can't still be me … Rand, don't you understand? I am still me. You're asking me to be someone else and … and I don't think I can be. I don't know if I want to be."

Rand was running his fingers through his hair and grabbing it and making it all stand on end worse than it usually does. "Kiri, I can't stand the idea of you getting hurt. I put up with a lot of stuff up to now, but you can't ask me to not worry and want to do the best I can for you and the … the baby. You … you heard those stories of those two women who died. You saw Alicia at Christmas. She's still recovering and the baby is, I don't know, weeks old at least."

"I know Rand. It's there in the back of my head."

"Well it's in the front of mine and I can't think of anything else! My God! There aren't even any hospitals or anything. What if something goes wrong?"

"You don't need a hospital to have a baby. My own mother was born at home Rand and she weighed ten pounds and my grandmother was way smaller a woman than I am even. Both my grandmothers were thirteen when they got married. Momma was sixteen. Every one of them were just teenagers when they had their first babies. I'm from that kind of stock … like those cows out there … a hardy, country breed."

"You've got to be kidding me. You are not comparing yourself to a dang old cow?!"

"Oh stop Rand. I was trying to make you laugh."

"Well, it's not funny. None of this is."

"So. You were mad at me because you thought I didn't want a baby with you. Now you're acting like it is you who doesn't want the baby."

"I … I mean … It's not that I don't want the baby. I've been thinking about us having kids. It just happened so quick. It's a lot to take in. We were being careful."

"I thought so too. I guess God decided he didn't care if we thought we were being careful or not," I told him. "Rand, it is what it is. And I am who I am. Don't ask me to just roll over and suddenly be somebody else – some wimpy, helpless thing – just because I've got a baby in my belly."

"Argh!"

"Rand?!"

"Kiri, maybe I can … I don't know … calm down about it some but you have got to help by not … not … "

"By not getting into so many scrapes?"

"God yes! I can't stand to think of some of the things that you've been up to over the last three months and then realize you were pregnant while it was going on. If something had happened … I know it's selfish Babe but … I just wouldn't have been able to forgive myself, go on living. I can barely breathe thinking about when the VRC …" When he started moaning and groaning I snuggled up close to him.

"Rand. I wish I could tell you I would have done something different but I don't know that I would have. You are just as important to me as you are saying that I am to you. But … if it is me that is so important to you then you are going to have to let me go on being me."

"I don't want you to change, I just want to keep you safe, you and the baby!"

"I know that. But … the way you are doing it … We've only known for a couple of days and I already feel … "

"Feel what? That you don't want me around?"

"Of course not. I'm just feeling … claustrophobic."

"You mean trapped and tied down."

"Did I say trapped or tied down?! I said claustrophobic and that's what I mean. Why? Are you feeling trapped and tied down?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Then why do you think I would feel that way?!"

"I don't know! Missy said … "

"Oh, here we go. Stop listening to Missy … and Laurabetth and Alicia and all those other females. I'm not them. I'll never be them. I'm me! And since I don't plan on letting you escape you are just going to have to learn to put up with it!" I ended up yelling even though I hadn't meant to even start.

I thought I'd gone too far. Rand kept inhaling like he was going to say something only nothing was coming out. His mouth was moving but no sound. I had visions of a major explosion and was getting ready to cry when all of a sudden he started laughing. And then he scooped me up and sat down with me in his lap and just never mind the rest. We made up real nice.

I think we are still on a learning curve as some of my teachers would have said. Rand is still watching me like a hawk but it feels different when he does it. I don't feel like I have to be so on guard. His looks feel like a … a … a caress and not so much like a poke at my commonsense. I don't feel like I have to constantly defend myself from his caring. I'm not sure that makes sense but that is how I feel.

I know Rand and I need to sit down and talk about more stuff but I didn't feel like another fight right after we had made up from this one. We never fought so much as we have the last couple of days. I hope it isn't like this the whole time, I really will turn into a puking machine.

 **January 5** **th** – It's bizarre. I'm able to forget that we're having a baby for a little while and then I'll do something and think something like, "In a couple of months I won't even be able to get close enough to the counter to make biscuits 'cause I'm pregnant." Or, "It won't be long before I won't be able to see to tie my boots because I'm pregnant." The hardest was realizing that I'm going to start busting out of my clothes and I don't have anything to wear. I wonder if Momma has any patterns for maternity clothes. It is so weird to think about.

But at least I don't have to think about it all the time. It's just there when I am ready to think about it. That's not so bad. Besides there are a ton of other things we need to think about … and do.

Today we got the garden planted. Rand hovered a little bit but it wasn't too awful. It works a lot better when we prep the garden the day or two before we plant. This means that we can plant more seeds on planting day. We planted celery, cauliflower, mustard greens, onions, English peas, white potatoes, spinach, turnips, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, Chinese cabbage, collard greens, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, romaine, mustard greens, green onions, English peas, potatoes, radish, and turnips. We put some opaque row covers on some of the stuff. On others we put two-liter soda bottles that have had the bottom cut out of them. It looks a little dorky but the bottles should act like mini-greenhouses. In another area we put this frame that Rand built on skids. The wood frame is covered with heavy duty plastic. It looks like a green house on sled rails and we can move it up and down rows as we need it or we can push it out of the way.

I can't wait until some of this stuff comes up, I'm dying for fresh stuff especially greens. We are growing some of the some of the greens in cold frames made from old window frames. I'm so desperate for something fresh that I'd eat the flowers out of my garden if they were ready. Marigolds, nasturtiums, chive blossoms, violas, pansies, and even rose petals are all edible. Once I started thinking about a fresh salad it was terribly hard to stop; I guess this is what you call a craving. I'd heard that the Crenshaw girls had had a few cravings, some of them strange. Personally I don't think eating flowers is strange but I'm sure I would get a few looks if I mentioned it to the wrong folks.

Since we didn't have anything fresh I opened a jar of the canned slaw I had done last year. It wasn't quite as good if it had been fresh but I sure wasn't going to complain about it. Rand seemed to enjoy it too and I didn't feel like I was being strange when he said that he was eager for the fresh veggies to start coming in too. It gets old eating dried, canned, smoked, or salted stuff all the time.

The hardest thing about today? Planting those potatoes. I wanted a baked potato so bad but they weren't the kind that was good for baking though I could have. And they were smallish, not the big Idaho potatoes you used to get in the restaurants. These were "junk" potatoes, or seconds, I would guess. I haven't a clue where Ram even got them. I hope he didn't swipe them off of a supply truck. Ram means well but he can be when he is determined he can … well, never mind. I suppose I should ask him next time I see him.

 **January 6** **th** – Rained a little today but that was good for the plants. Cows aren't giving as much milk. Rand said it is because the calves aren't drinking as much so we'll need to go back to two milkings to keep their supply up. Add that to the chore list. Rand and I made a compromise; he would do the morning milking to give my stomach time to settle and I could do the evening milking. At least he didn't try and stop me all together; he just wants me to be careful if the cows decide to do some kicking.

I was working on laundry when I heard the clatter of a buggy. I went to the window and saw Brendon helping Mrs. Withrow down. I wasn't expecting company but when I went to the door the first thing out of Mrs. Withrow's mouth was, "I don't want a fuss, I just wanted to come by and see how you were and since Brendon was coming over to see Rand anyway I begged a ride."

I had her come inside and asked if she minded sitting in the kitchen since a fire was already going in the stove in there. "Lands no child. You don't need to stand on formality with me."

Formal or not I was a little embarrassed that there were a couple of dishes in the dishpan and no tablecloth on the table. The table cloth was in the load that was soaking and the dishes were from my later than normal breakfast. I threw a dishtowel over the dishes real quick and then put the kettle on the stove top to heat. I didn't have anything but cornbread to go with it but I sliced a little and put fresh butter and honey on the table to drizzle over it.

"Well, this is nice. You have a neat and tidy place here. I vaguely remember your mother you know. She came to one of the Quilt Guild shows after they first built this place."

"I didn't know. Momma liked to go to the Quilt Shoppe over in Trenton every time we came up here. She'd go in the shop and Daddy would take brother and I walking on the bike trail that was by the old train depot."

"I'm sorry to say I don't think I ever met your father. He sounds like he was a good man," she said and then stopped only to start back up again. "Child … well, I'm not quite sure how to start without it sounding pathetic. You know I'm a widow. I was Mr. Withrow's second wife, he's first left him when he got religion and changed all his ways. He had two boys from his first marriage and we had three boys together. I'd always wanted a girl and finally decided I'd have to wait for the boys to marry. But only two of the five married and of those two only one stuck and they never lived close. The two grandchildren we were blessed with were both boys as well. One turned out to have lots of problems and I haven't heard from him in over ten years. My other grandson is a good boy but he lives out west someplace. The girl he married couldn't have children but they adopted a couple of boys that belonged to her sister that died in a car wreck. We exchanged Christmas and birthday cards, and I'd get the occasional school picture, but I haven't heard from them since the flu got real bad. Stevie had some land out there and was into all that survivalism stuff that was on the television the last couple of years. I expect they are doing well enough eating all of that rice and those beans he was forever buying."

I didn't have a clue where this was heading so I just let her talk.

"Well a day, makes me sound like a lonesome old woman but I haven't been. I've lived a good life and then some. Had a few adventures and more than my share of blessings along the road including a good man that I was married to for over forty years and whom I am sure I will see again in Heaven. But I'm still here and I am now a woman on my own and as such I need to deal with my own business. And part of that business is that I don't have anyone to pass my things along to when the time comes. I had thought to leave them to DeLois and that young daughter in law she now has, even started to make our a will to that effect but I've changed my mind. I thought about leaving it to George's girls but that Missy would only put it in the trading post and Laurabeth already has her hands full with what is in her father's house not to mention what came from Jonathon's parents' home before it was burned down. I gave serious consideration to Alicia, she is a sweet girl, but it is some time off before she and Brendon have a house of their own and when they do they'll fill it with things that Alicia has from her family. I didn't know what I was going to do until recently. Nothing I thought of gave me any peace. Then you come along and I know exactly what I want to do if you'll help me."

"I'll do what I can ma'am but I'm not sure how I can help."

"Well, for starters, I'm getting too old to take care of the house. There's a young couple one farm over living with his folks and all his siblings in crowded conditions. The boy was a favorite of m' husband when he was still teaching up at the highschool. I know they'd appreciate the house and take care of it. I've been renting the land to his Daddy for a number of years anyway so it's not like things would really change all that much. But that brings me to a problem. I've lived in that house for over fifty years and my husband lived there his whole life as it was his parents' home. There is over a hundred years of accumulations in that house."

"If you need some help cleaning things up I'm sure Rand won't pitch a fit over that. Anything we need to move we could get Mick and Tommy to help with or Rand when he came to pick me up."

"Child, I don't just want some help cleaning the old place up, I want someone I can give stuff to." At the look on my face she laughed, "Lands girl, I don't mean to dump all of it on you but my quilts and such and some other things, well, when it's my time I want to know that the person they go to will appreciate them for what they are."

Rand had come in at that point and I'm glad. I'm not sure I would have ever come up with something to say.

"Mrs. Withrow, are you sure you want to do this?" he asked.

"Son, I'm sure you remember how sick I was three years ago. I've never gotten my full strength back. I'm not getting any younger either. I don't have any plans on dying tomorrow but I'm not privy to God's plans on the subject. I just want to find some peace on a subject that has been worrying at me for some time. I prayed that the Lord would present me a solution and I believe He has, but I won't force it on you."

Next Tuesday, if the weather is appropriate, I'll go "visiting" at Mrs. Withrow's and I'll help her to start downsizing. As soon as the house is squared away, she plans on moving into a smaller building her husband used to use as his office space that is a converted detached garage about a quarter mile down the road from the main house. Rand will time my visits to Mrs. Withrow to coincide when he is working at Uncle George's over over in the area cutting hay, plowing, or whatever. Several people have asked him what he would trade for an hour or a day worth of work with the mules. If Rand was looking for work he wouldn't have to look far and now it looks like I've found a bit of work for myself.

After she and Brendon left I finished the laundry that could be dried before the sun went down and fixed Seafood Delight using some of the cans of stuff that Ram left us and some tea-sized cornmeal biscuits for our supper. I made a little potato chowder from my LTS dried soup mixes but if I'd had it canned, or maybe some corn chowder, I could have used that instead. To the potato chowder I added a six ounce can of crabmeat and a six ounce can of shrimp both of which were drained and a third of a cup of dry bread crumbs from the toast I couldn't finish at breakfast. I dumped that into a baking dish and sprinkled it with about another cup of dry bread crumbs from a loaf of bread that didn't rise when I was baking it. I sliced the bread thin and then dried it like melba toast and then when it was cool I ran the toast over a grater.

The Seafood Delight baked in a 350 degree F oven for thirty minutes and came out all nice and bubbly. The biscuits went really well with the super rich seafood dish. Rand really like it so I gave him the rest of mine. It tasted good but I'm not sure that maybe it was a little too rich for my taste.

During supper Rand said, "Brendon brought some harsh news. Hiram Gilkins is dead."

"Who?"

"The father of those three little kids that you made the coats for."

"That woman … Lucretia … her huband? The one that drinks?"

"Yeah, that's him … or was. The way Brendon tells it she sent one of the kids over to the still to tell their daddy to get up off his lazy backside and cut some wood for the fireplace. The kid comes back and says that Hiram is asleep. She says fine, let him sleep. He was higher than a kite and too drunk to wake himself up. In the morning, one of her husband's drinking buddies shows up and finds that he has died in the night … of hypothermia. She left him there to freeze to death."

"Oh no! How on earth is she going to get her children back now?"

"I don't think she's too worried about that. From what has been said she hasn't asked after the children even once; sure hasn't been by to see them or do a thing for them."

"That's a lot of 'they say.' I can't imagine anyone would … I take that back. I can. I saw too much of it in foster care. Is it for sure that the brother is going to keep the children?"

"Oh yeah. He and his wife wanted to adopt them before now. I remember he tried to get the law on it but that was back when things were really falling to pieces. He and his wife decided not to have children of their own because she has something genetic in her family, I think it is that stuff they used to have the big telethon for around Memorial Day. Brendon said that the only problem now is the that the kids are scared their mother is going to come steal them away and they'll have to go live with her again."

"Could she?"

"I doubt she would. She already has the Lemuel … Lemuel … I can't think of his last name right now. Anyway, he ain't living with her just as a friend if you know what I mean. I know we moved kind of fast but that beats all I've ever seen. The dirt hadn't even settled on her husband's grave."

I suppose it takes all types but that is a type I'd rather not have to deal with if I don't have to. After dinner Rand and I went out to the barn together; he took care of putting the animals to bed and I milked the cows. Rand was right, the cows weren't giving near as much milk as they had been but it is still much more than we need.

We came back in and while Rand cleaned up from working outside I finished the dishes and set them in the drainer to dry, banked the fire in the stove and refilled the water reservoir and by that time I was just flat tired. Rand came out of the shower, saw how I felt and offered to scrub my back. Who can turn an offer like that down. I caught him looking and all he said was, "I don't see any difference. It's hard to imagine there is a baby growing right there."

I really don't feel different. Mentally yes but aside from being sick and a little more tired than normal I'm having a hard really believing that I'm as pregnant as Ken says I am. Oh, I believe him but maybe I'm not as far along as he thinks I am. If I am we'll have a baby to take care of come July. That sounds like a long time from now but I have a feeling it is going to sneak up on us a lot quicker than we're ready for.


	73. Chapter 72

Chapter 72

 **January 9** **th** – Nothing much happened Sunday or Monday. Rand and I talked so much at night that I didn't have any time (or inclination) left to journal; but the time was well spent, we are not quite so much like a pair of Betta fish willing to fight over everything including our own reflection.

About the only things I guess I should note is that we wrote down on our calendar that I'm now officially fourteen weeks pregnant (yikes!) and that we harvested some parsnips that we'd let stay in the ground until after the first frost. The parsnips were good and I even managed to can some of them though I put the canner on the stove before filling it with water and jars. I felt some of that stretching again on my inside but not as bad. I suppose I should say something to Ken next time he gives me a check up. I'm not going to say anything to Rand unless it gets bad again; there is no sense in worrying him for no reason.

It was nice to have a couple of semi-boring days. I like boring. Boring is good after all the excitement of the last few weeks. We didn't even have a church service since it was an off week. Rand and I have decided that on the Sundays we don't have a church service, or can't go to one that is scheduled, we will study on our own. We made a commitment to it; we are trying to be more mature about things like that now that we are going to be parents and have to train up a kid of our own.

I hadn't planned on today being very exciting since I was just going to go help Mrs. Withrow clean her house and help fetch and carry what she wants to take to her new little house but I suppose it was exciting enough. A little bit like Christmas in a way and a little bit weird and spooky at the same time. It reminded me too much of when my grandparents died and the kids were deciding who got what … all I cared about was that my grandparents were dead, deciding what to do with the stuff they left behind just made it hurt more.

It was about nine o'clock when Rand dropped me off at the Withrow place. "Don't you two ladies do any moving of anything heavy. I'll be back around tea time and I'll do what I can and I'll talk Uncle George around to letting Mick and Tommy come by and do what I can't finish."

Mrs. Withrow arched her eyebrow and asked, "Rand Joiner, are you really telling me what to do in my own house?"

Rand got red in the face but answered, "Not for a bad reason Mrs. Withrow. I just don't want y'all to get hurt or anything."

"Humph. Well, since your reasons are pure I'll let you slide this time," and she smiled to let Rand know she had got him a good one.

After Rand left, shaking his head, Mrs. Withrow turned to me and said, "I have a plan for how I want this done in my head but if you've got any suggestions along the way you sing out child. I want to decide what to take to the little house first and that should make us some room to work with. From there I'll decide what has to go and where."

"Sounds like a plan to me. Where do you want to start?"

"Hmm. Let's go down to the little house and I'll show you how it is set up and we'll take some measurements. I meant to do it yesterday but the Rearson baby climbed out of its crib and got into the fireplace ashes. The daddy came got me to sit with his wife while he ran for the Pastor."

As we walked the few feet to the little house I asked, "Is the baby all right?"

"Will be, praise God, though his hands don't look too pretty right now. The ashes weren't red hot but they were still more than warm; it gave everyone a good scare. Mind you I still don't understand why they would have left the crib unattended like that where there was a fireplace with no screen. Which reminds me, I saw you had a nice set of glass doors on your fireplace but I don't know if you have any screens for your stove. There are a couple of good strong ones in the upstairs bedrooms if you don't. You need something once a baby starts crawling. My boys would get into everything. We had to put Ernst – he was our youngest – in a harness and tie it to a door knob or post to keep him from pulling things down on himself. His brothers used to be awful and walk him like a dog but we didn't know what else to do, the baby gates they had back then were just something for him to knock down or climb over. We tried every high chair we could afford and that little Houdini still managed to escape. The harness was the only thing he couldn't get out of. Of course I had my mother's revenge when Stevie turned out to be just like his daddy if not worse. There was one time we came home to find that Rupert – our oldest – had gotten so frustrated babysitting that he had put Ernst in a dog crate and locked it shut."

Mrs. Withrow told stories on her family all day. It sounds like it was a zoo raising five boys. Hope my baby isn't like that although with my luck it will be and then some. It didn't take long for us take the measurements that she wanted. If Mrs. Withrow is a slower version of what she used to be I can't imagine how she must have bustled before she got sick a couple of years back. I'm not ashamed to say it took everything I had to keep up with her.

The little house needs it all, from curtains to bedding to kitchen ware to just everything. Well, everything except furniture that is, there is already some in the front room and in the back room that is set up like a bedroom. The one thing the little place doesn't have is indoor plumbing but Mrs. Withrow told me, "Oh I have plans to take care of that too. Dixon Ayers and his son are coming by during the week and they are going to close in that little niche over there that is formed by the closet my husband added when our sons would come visit more often. We never got around to adding a bathroom because of the expense but the plumbing was actually dug and laid to an old dry barrel, we just never hooked it up. Dixon checked and it looks like it is still there, all I need is to find a toilet and he'll hook everything up. And under that little counter in the front room in the kitchen space, there is the pipe for the pump handle. That's another one of Mr. Withrow's projects that never got finished."

We left and she locked the place up. "I'll get Rand to trade the mattress on the bedframe for mine. I'll want my treadle and a couple of my chests and cabinets to hold my patterns and material in. And I want my chair and my rocker brought down and maybe a couple of foot stools. I'll use that side table by the window to eat at, the one sitting by the pot belly stove … thank goodness Mr. Withrow never went through with his plans to take it out … I'll have to see how much room I have after that."

Once we got back to the house we started going through her linen cabinets. She took sets of everything … bed linens, tablecloths, two sets of curtains and sheers for each room, a week's worth of bath linens, same for kitchen linens, pillows and some other odds and ends. "We'll take this down – we'll use the hand cart there by the porch if you'll fetch it around here – hopefully we can get it in one load. I'm going to give myself a week to get the little house situated before I move in. That'll give me time to think and be sure of what I want to do."

The linens took two loads and then came her clothes. My goodness, I never knew anyone but movie stars could have so many. It was mostly because she made her own clothes and they were of such good quality and taken care of that they didn't really wear out. "Lands child, I'm sure you must think I'm the vainest woman alive. Used to be close to it. Look at this dress, at least thirty years out of date and doesn't fit any more either. Don't know why I've kept it except it took me forever to hand sew all of those little pleats. Let's clean this closet out and set all these clothes in the front room. We'll clean out the other closets as we get to those rooms. There are people in our community … some going to our church … that don't have much more than the clothes on their backs and here I am with all of this just sitting here dry rotting. Lord forgive me."

Once she had all the linens and clothes down at the house she wanted she turned to me. "Now, when Rand comes back I'm going to have him pull around back through the carriage drive. We'll put these old shower curtains in the bottom of the wagon and lay things on top of them. I've got some old tarps out in the shed and we'll tie that over the top of everything and it will keep the road dust … and prying eyes … out as you go home.

"Mrs. Withrow you don't have to give me this stuff to help you."

"I know that child. I told you, making sure some of my things get good homes is a load off my mind. I'm not just saying that either. I've gotten attached to some of this old stuff and it will be a kindness to know someone else will take care of it when I'm gone. If the Lord doesn't come first and you are blessed to reach my age you'll understand but until you do trust me on this. While we old folks know that we can't take it with us when we go, it doesn't mean we want to leave it behind to just anybody. We may not be blood related but I have a feeling we understand each other. Now … this here closet," she said opening a pair of double doors in what she called the laundry room, "was put in by my husband's grandfather after the house was built. It's a real cedar closet and it is where all the household linens not in immediate use were kept. My mother in law started using it for her fine linens, table cloths and quilts and I continued the practice. I'm going to take a few of these quilts with me and I want to gift a couple to other people but the majority of them I want you to take home with you."

"Mrs. Withrow! There … there are … "

"I know child. I've been doing this my whole life and my grandmother and mother in law before me. If I'd had any sense I would have put some of these old quilts in the raffle back before, but I didn't so here they are."

We made piles … more stuff for the little house, stuff she was setting aside, and stuff she meant for me to take home. Next we moved into the bathrooms. "I've got all the bath towels and such that I need."

"So do we."

"So you think. What do you plan on using for diapers."

I opened my mouth but it just sort of hung there swinging in the breeze.

"Uh huh, that's what I thought. Now towels won't be as good as real cloth diapers but beggars can't be choosers. You take all of these and you can cut them down to the size you need. They'll also be good for making baby clothes with. And slippers until they are big enough for whatever you wind up using for shoes."

It was like that everywhere we turned. I'd think of a reason why we had enough and Mrs. Withrow would show me a reason we probably didn't. The morning was gone and we'd only covered the linens, including most of her quilting supplies.

"I'm going to set some of this aside to put with the Ladies' Auxiliary's supplies. Christmas may only come once a year but charity should last all year long. You know what fat quarters are child?" At my affirmative nod she continued, "I expected you did. I've got boxes of these things tucked all over the house. Can't even remember what I've got any more. After the boys grew up and moved away I had too much time on my hands and I got a little silly with my allowance. If a piece of material was on sale I had to have it. Lord a mercy, what I could have done with all that money if I had it back to spend when groceries started going up so fierce. Anytime you find a box of materialjust put it in the parlor and I'll go through the pieces later. Any sewing notions you find put them by my sewing box in the same room. I'll go through them later as well."

We had a nice lunch of these little pie thingies … like a meat pie but all filled with vegetables. After eating and cleaning up we went to work in the kitchen.

"I already know what dishes I want to take and have moved them into that cabinet over there so don't bother with taking anything out of that one. I also want my every day tea service and my small cast iron pieces, but I want you to take the company tea service and the bigger cast iron pieces home. I can't lift 'em anymore anyway. Even if I could I have no reason to use anything that big anymore. As I recall Rand is hollow from the feet up and you could likely use some bigger cookware."

I couldn't deny Rand's appetite, it's pretty legendary. How he can eat like he does and stay so thin I'll never know. If there was food for it he'd probably graze all day long. I started having to piece out the baking or it seemed to just disappear before it was time to get another baking done.

The pile for us to take home kept growing as we went over the house in a first pass … sad irons; hot irons used to warm your sheets before you climb in bed; cast iron trivets; all sorts of glassware, pewter, speckleware, something called Depression Glass and Carnival glass, fancy dishes, and silverware; canning jars, crocks, and stoneware; bottles and jars; trays and platters; just about anything that you can imagine as far as houseware and kitchenware. To be honest there was plenty of junk there too. Old melamine dishes, electric clocks of all shapes and sizes, Avon perfume bottles in more shapes than I thought possible, gifts and awards she and her husband had received over their many years of community service and teaching … just stuff upon stuff upon stuff. A lot of it was interesting but I had to keep myself from cringing in fear when she'd run across something that seemed to me to be completely useless even if it was kind of cute. But Mrs. Withrow is smart, she kept her sentimental stuff, set some of the silly stuff aside to think about, and then the useless stuff went into another room all together.

Eventually we made our way through the house. "You likely have quite a few pattern books from your Momma so I'm going to donate these … and my husband's library … to the Ladies Auxiliary. One of those storefronts next to where we will be having church services from now on is going to be turned into a lending library. Ada Chilton and her two sons are going to move into the living space above the shop – it used to be a dry goods store back when I was a girl – to keep an eye on things. Now, I know you are gonna think I've lost my mind but I want you and Rand to take that old wind up record player over there. My father in law had a huge collection of those old 78's and 33's and … you … you do know what a record is don't you child?"

"It's a big black disk they used to record music on." My parents had had a load of them but the few I found up in the bonus rooms when I was cleaning up there were warped from the heat since they hadn't been stored flat for several years.

"Well, thank goodness. Do you know some of my Sunday School students had no idea what those were last time I had a party out here. They wanted to know how to play CDs on it. Anyway, there's a box of vinyls … the old name for records … in the cabinet that it is sitting on. And someplace around here I have my son's battery operated record player that they used to take down to the springs when they'd have their parties; it might still work."

It was getting towards time when Rand was supposed to pick me up so she said we'd just take a quick peak up in the attic before I left.

Momma had a cousin that used to exclaim "Oh my stars and garters!" when she saw a mess or something outrageous. I always thought she was being silly on purpose to break the tension, but I have to say that when we got to the top of the attic stairs and I looked around at the mess up there I nearly said it out loud myself. Right around the stairs it wasn't too bad. There were boxes labeled for holiday decorations mostly, but the further away from the stairs you got the deeper the dust got until by the time I was looking as far back as the light would carry shapes were only vaguely recognizable under who knows how many generations of dust bunnies.

In a pretty big understatement Mrs. Withrow said, "Well … I do believe I had forgotten just how big a mess it is up here. We certainly have our work cut out for us."

Mrs. Withrow is lucky I didn't turn tail and run after I'd taken my first look. She's even luckier that I didn't turn tail and run after my second and third looks.

Rand arrived then and was drug upstairs to help bring some of the boxes of decorations down so that Mrs. Withrow could go through them. Then she had Rand bring down a few more things to give her room to look around a bit up there. There was a wash stand with a porcelain bowl and pitcher that she said would fit into an empty corner in her new bedroom, a full length mirror that was missing most of its silvering, a couple of old steamer trunks, and an old wooden card table whose top was warped and rotted and the chairs to match it that were missing their woven bottoms.

"Good Heavens. Looks like I'll need to have a bonfire in the not too distant future."

Rand looked thoughtful and then said, "Actually, I might have a better plan. From what I understand there is going to be a meet-and-swap not this Saturday but next. You can either use the stuff you don't want to trade for stuff you do or you can put it in a pile someplace and hang a sign on it that says 'free.'"

"Hmm. Won't do a bit of good unless I can get some help hauling these things. Where is it going to be held?"

"In the park. I think Pastor Ken is hoping to have some kind of mission table or something like that to see who the families are in greatest need."

"That means the Auxiliary will probably need to set up a table as well to help out. Let me think on it and see if it is even worth the bother. Now boy, you take Kiri on home and help her put this stuff away where she tells you to." She gave me a hug that caught me off guard and said, "We'll see each other again soon. Maybe next Tuesday if nothing comes up. That'll give me time to think and do some planning. Now let's get your wagon loaded, I hadn't realized how late it was getting. And Rand, before you go can you light the kitchen stove up for me and bring in some wood from the wood pile?"

We waited until we were half way home before we started laughing. "Lord Kiri, what all is in those boxes and bags?"

"You really don't want to know. I'm embarrassed by her generosity but I didn't know how to stop her. She's something else."

"You can say that again. When she and Momma O get going at the same time it is a sight to see … or used to be. She's aged a lot this last year. I think half the reason why I came around and gave up the worst of the stuff that I was getting into is because of those two old couples. If they weren't meddling in my business they were praying for me. As bad as I was they never gave up on me. I'll never forget that."

"I wish … "

"Wish what Babe?"

"Oh … just … I missed that."

"Missed what?"

"After the accident … I missed … missed … having someone care that way. Mr. Barnes did I guess but not in that everyday kind of way. It makes me think about stuff I'd rather not."

"Like what? You know if it is bothering you this much you need to talk it out. I … Kiri? Babe? Are you crying?!"

I wiped my eyes, "I don't know what my problem is lately. Every time I turn around I'm turning into a dang old watering pot!"

"Babe … what is it?"

"Just, it makes me wonder if … you know … something happens to me … to us … who will be there for our baby."

I pretty much gobsmaked Rand with that idea. Now I wish I hadn't mentioned it because I can tell he was thinking about it most of the evening when he was supposed to be working on his project plans.

When we got home I was tired and having a hard time shaking off the depression that had hit me out of the blue. I guess Rand had picked up on my mood because he was being sweet and said he'd make dinner. As sweet as the offer was it didn't make good sense. He had the animals to take care of and we needed the wood boxes refilled before dark set in. I gave him a kiss and said I'd take him up on it another time and then made a pan of cornbread and opened a quart jar of venison vegetable soup for dinner. It was warm and filling, quick to fix and quick to clean up; a winning combination after the day I had had.

After dinner Rand disappeared for a bit and I eventually found him in the room that we'd put all the baby stuff in.

"I'm sorry I brought up bad memories Rand. Sometimes I just … "

"Don't apologize. I guess it is something we need to think about. We both know what can happen. Bad things happen. But, if you don't mind Babe I … I just don't want to think about it right now."

"Sure. I don't really want to think about it right now either. Besides, we have your family."

"That's the thing, we do but … I never wanted my kid to feel like I did, like … "

He had trailed off so I guessed based on what we'd talked about before and said, "Like you were never quite as good as if you'd been picked on purpose."

"Yeah … yeah, exactly that. I know Uncle George loves me but I always felt like I was never quite good enough. It wasn't all the family's fault but some stuff … I just don't want that for our baby. I don't want anything to happen to us at all."

We gave up doing anything constructive after a while and came in here to our bedroom rather than waste any heat in the rest of the house. Rand fell asleep and I'm finally winding down. I wonder how other couples are handling this. I hadn't been paying that close attention like I should have thinking it wasn't going to happen to me for a while.

I just had a thought. What is Ram going to say when he comes by this way again? I don't know when we'll see him but the look on his face ought to be hysterical.

 **January 13** **th** – Haven't felt much like writing, I've been tired. I don't know if it is a real tired or something I've talked myself into now that I know I'm pregnant and that is what pregnant women are supposed to be … tired … tired and emotional. Ick. I don't like this one bit. I mean, OK, maybe I like the warm fuzzies that I've started to get when I think about the baby but the tired and weepy part I can totally do without. I feel like some alien has taken over my body. What gives with that?!

I said as much to Ken when he came by today and did his measuring thing. He said it was normal. The last thing I feel right now is normal. And worst of all? I can't get my jeans buttoned. It happened yesterday when I was getting dressed in the morning. I just started crying … stupid, stupid. Rand heard me and ran in and then just didn't get it at all. He laughed. That only made me get mad and cry harder because he didn't understand. I tried to explain it but I still don't think he gets it. It's not like there are any stores I can go to for clothes that are going to fit and I can't imagine wearing a dress all the time though it may come to that at some point. How I'll hide my legs if that is all I'm left with I don't know. Maybe Rand will make me some knee length moccasins.

For now I'm leaving my pants unsnapped and I'm using some cord to hold my pants up. My t-shirt covers everything up and then I have a couple of flannel shirts that I can wear like a jacket over that, at least for a while. Rand was going to sit in on this exam but Mr. Henderson showed up wanting to know if Rand would do some mowing for him so that he could open up another field. So Rand stayed outside talking to Mr. Henderson while Ken and I talked inside.

Ken gave me this booklet that showed all the symptoms and junk that I'm likely feeling depending on how far along I am. It has pictures and everything and Rand has been all over it tonight. He's looked at it more than I have and I swear he was making notes and using a highlighter like he was studying for a test. Ken says everything looks normal and that now I'm probably going to start showing real fast since I finally started. Lovely. When he went to leave he asked me if there was anything else. I almost didn't say but figured just in case I had better. So I told him about the stretching feeling. He asked if it was the same kind of feeling that I've had in the past and blah, blah, blah.

"I take it this isn't something that you've mentioned to Rand."

"No. 'Cause if you want to know the truth I think he'd use just about any excuse to freak out again."

Pastor Ken laughed, "Well, he's going to be a father, that's something worth getting a little wound up about."

"Humph. A little wound up I could handle. No, I guess you're right and he is better than he was at first, it's just that he is worried enough as it is and I'm worried about him thinking he has to do it all and then something going wrong because of that."

"Well, worrying isn't going to do either one of you any good." That's when he gave me the booklet and told me to just monitor the feelings I'm having and that if they get worse to let him know.

I suppose the booklet did help Rand. He keeps asking me if I know this or that and I keep telling him no. What?! Are girls supposed to just suddenly know this stuff just by osmosis or something? Sure, I guess I feel some instinctual stuff but how the heck would I know that our baby is about four inches long and weighs in at about two ounces. And I don't know about everyone else but talking about heartburn, indigestion, and constipation hasn't beem exactly normal after dinner conversation for us and I'd rather it not become the main thing we communicate about.

When he wanted to compare how I looked to the woman in the picture in the booklet I told him I'd had enough questions for the night and unless he wanted me to develop a headache of ginormous proportions he'd find something else to talk about real quick.

He came over and snuggled up and said, "You know I'm only wondering. I thought girls would like it that the guy was involved."

"There you go again, thinking I'm just like these generic girls you keep mentioning. I'm me … remember?"

"So you don't want me to be interested?"

"Of course I want you to be interested. I just don't want you to be interested to the exclusion of everything else. We used to talk about other stuff, listen to the radio, play a game of chess or cards. We haven't done any of that in a while. I feel like a brood mare. Suddenly being pregnant is all I'm good for."

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! That's not true. Come on Babe, don't be this way."

"Look, I know I'm acting like a spoiled brat and I'm sorry."

"It's all right. Come here, the book says that back rubs make you feel more relaxed."

You know, on the one hand I'm beginning to hate that booklet … but on occasion it might actually be worth something after all.

 **January 14** **th** – I swear I never realized how nosey some people can be. Church today was just completely awful. I couldn't even concentrate on the sermon for all the stares and pointing that was going on. I mean some people just came right out and asked when I had gotten pregnant … like I was going to describe the evening to them in detail.

It's not like I wasn't due to have my nose rubbed in it a bit. I guess I'd been a little prideful comparing myself to the women who had got caught pregnant before me, thinking I knew more than I did. So in that sense I understand some of it was just plain consequences. But some of it … sakes alive! If one more person rubs my belly like I'm some good luck charm I'm not going to be responsible for my actions.

 **January 15** **th** – Rand got a turkey right from the wagon seat as we were coming home from church yesterday; it weighed every bit of sixteen pounds. Yesterday we had roasted turkey breast for dinner and today we are having turkey sandwiches off what is left. The dark meat I canned some of but I saved most of the carcass for make soup today.

Turkey Soup with Slickers is something Momma used to make after Thanksgiving or when Daddy would bring home a turkey he got on sale at the Commissary. You start with a turkey carcass from at least a fourteen pound turkey and you put that in a big stock pot with five quarts of water, a half cup of chopped onion, a half cup of chopped carrots, a half cup of chopped celery, three tablespoons of dried parsley flakes, two teaspoons of salt, one-half teaspoon of pepper, and two bay leaves. Bring it to a boil, skim the fat off, and then reduce it to simmer for two hours. After that you take the bay leaves out and then the carcass and let it cool. Whatever meat hasn't fallen off the bones already, you remove and put back in the broth.

Next you take one cup of the broth only (no chunks of anything) and mix that with one egg and enough flour to make a stiff dough, somewhere between two and a half and three cups of flour. Turn your dough out onto a floured surface and knead it eight to ten times to get it smooth. Then divide the dough in half. Roll a half until it is one-eighth of an inch thick and then cut it into two-inch by quarter-inch strips. Repeat with the other half of the dough.

To the broth left in the pot add one-half teaspoon of dill, one-half teaspoon of poultry seasoning, and one cup of dried peas if you have them. Bring it all to a gentle boil and then add in the dough strips (the "slickers"). But a lid on your pot and let it cook for about thirty minutes or until the slickers are cooked and the peas are tender. Yum yum!

The other thing I managed to do today was to put away the last of the stuff that came to us from Mrs. Withrow and a good thing too because I'm supposed to go over there again tomorrow. I'm going prepared this time though with bandanas for my hair and face and a pair of goggles to keep the dust bunnies out of my eyes too. I have a feeling I'm going to get absolutely filthy up in that attic and goodness only knows what is hiding up there waiting to be found … or wanting to not be found. Ew.


	74. Chapter 73

Chapter 73

 **January 18** **th** – I'm still cleaning the dust bunnies out of my ears. What I wouldn't give for some decent q-tips right now. I've flushed my ears the best I can but it still feels like there is something in there. Yesterday I just couldn't go any more and accidentally fell asleep drooling on the open page I had meant to start writing on; unfortunately Rand came in and caught me snoozing and hustled me out of the kitchen and into bed last night. Finally today I can catch up with what has been rattling around in my head, besides the dust bunnies.

Two days ago I went to Mrs. Withrow's again. She'd had Mick and Tommy over a couple of afternoons. They are good boys and really helped her. The young couple she planned on gifting the house to – surname was Halverston but I can't place them in my head so don't know if we've been introduced – came over a couple of afternoons as well and moved some of the heavier stuff. Lucky for me she saved the attic for us. And yes, I'm practicing my skill at sarcasm with that one.

Mrs. Withrow is an interesting old woman but she is bossy as all get out. I like her anyway and I'm thankful; I'm just not quite sure what to make of her sudden generosity. It makes me uncomfortable. Rand doesn't seem to have a problem with it. I guess he has known her since he was a young boy and she is practically family to him in some ways. Still … I'm not sure how to respond sometimes and I wonder if I'm being grateful enough or not. I don't want her to think I'm not appreciative. I've never had to deal with a situation like this. I knew there were people like her out there, I just never expected to meet one much less have to deal with their munificence (had to look that one up in the dictionary when Rand used it to describe Mrs. Withrow).

There was no fooling around once I arrived on her doorstep. Rand helped me down and handed me the basket I had brought; he had to get going as he had a full day of plowing ahead of him and he didn't want to overwork the mules but he still took the time to remind me no heavy lifting, that he would get it when he came to pick me up. He turned the mules and was off down the road heading to the Reardon's back forty.

I must have looked pretty unusual because Mrs. Withrow started laughing when she'd gotten her first good look at me. Instead of my jeans I had decided to wear a pair of the overalls that I had salvaged all those months ago. They were husky-size boys overalls; bigger in the waist than I needed yet but short in the leg. The warm socks I had knitted for myself from scraps of yarn showed above the tops of my work boots. Under the overalls I had a long john shirt with a t-shirt over that and I topped off my ensemble with an old, faded flannel shirt. My accessories included a couple of bandanas, a pair of goggles, and a pair of gloves that hung out of my back pocket.

So … I wouldn't exactly have won a beauty contest with the outfit but I was warm and comfortable and that was about all I cared about at that point. I struck a pose and she just laughed harder then shook her head and said, "My lands child you couldn't have caught me more off guard with that get up had you tried."

As we climbed the stairs she told me what she had been doing. She seemed to be rejuvenated, as if the decluttering and moving to the little house had somehow given her years back that the burden of taking care of the big house had stolen from her. "I was a little sore yesterday but I'm in fine fiddle today. If we only get half the attic done I'll be more than satisfied. I was going to work on the attic myself but I was afraid of getting up there and something happening and no one being around to know it. I may be a bit paranoid but I had Josiah … that's the Halverston boy I was telling you about … take the door knob off the door and just to be double sure it doesn't close and stick on us I've got a wedge to put under the door as well."

The attic didn't look much better than I'd seen it except that Josiah had also managed to get the nails out of the nearest window so that it could be raised and lowered. It wouldn't stay up, I guess the sash was broken, so I put a couple of bug chewed books to prop it open about six inches. It was more than a little cool outside but there was just enough wind to draw the worst of the dust out.

The first thing I did was sweep and dust so we could see what we were getting into. I had Mrs. Withrow go back down the stairs a bit while I put on my goggles and pulled the bandana up over my nose and mouth. When I was finished with a five by ten area I called her back up. "Gracious! You look like you've been in a dust storm child. Here, drink this cup of tea to clear your throat." I took it gratefully while we both looked around.

A lot of what was up in the attic had deteriorated over the years. Anything of fabric that hadn't been protected by moth balls or cedar chests was moth eaten or dry rotted. There wasn't any saving it. I learned what "shattered silk" was and learned that once that starts happening there is no way to repair it; pieces like that went right into the burn barrel in the back yard. I also found out that "book worms" are real and the bane of many book collectors; they burrow through pages of old books, magazines and catalogs at an alarming rate. More than a few old paperbacks and farming catalogs went into the barrel.

Actually bookworms are insects like book lice and silverfish. Mrs. Withrow said she used to keep mugwort, wormwood and a solution of borax on the library shelves to keep those bugs away. The idea of all of my cookbooks and our library getting eaten up by insect type critters gives me the heebie jeebies. I've still got two five gallon buckets of borax so I guess I better get to putting that stuff where it will do some good.

Also into the burn barrel went nearly a hundred years of business papers and ledgers. "The important ones are tucked into my cedar chest in the little house. Mr. Withrow made sure of that as soon as he found out his cancer was terminal. The rest of this might be a curiosity to a family historian but since there aren't any around I'm declaring it flotsam and jettisoning it."

I'd sweep an area clear and we'd go through it with Mrs. Withrow deciding what she wanted to do with various things or writing on cards and tying them to various items that were too heavy for us to move far … or move at all in some cases. Every once in a while she would start looking through a piece of furniture, trunk, or chest and get this far away look on her face; but then she would shake her head and get this ruthless look on her face and start pitching things. "I do believe Rand had a good idea about taking this stuff to the swap meet - George has agreed to loan me Brendon and one of his large wagons - but I'm of a mind to let others handle the disposal. I'm not saying I couldn't do it but I don't want to be tempted to keep things back just out of sentiment or because I might not be partial to the person looking to haul something off."

Lots of commonsense in that in my opinion. That's why a lot of people used to prefer to have an objective third party handle estate sales according to Aunt Wilma. She loved estate sales and when I was in my wheelchair I was her captive and was forced to travel to many of them all over the Tampa Bay area sitting there people watching. It wasn't always pretty. The family, especially if they were sentimental, generally thought things were worth more than they actually were. Sometimes whoever was handling the sell actually requested that the family not attend so that sales could be made more quickly. It was awful to watch people cry as other people bought their relative's things or watched them being auctioned off for pennies on the dollar.

I was thinking on this, trying to figure out where to put a dress form with an impossibly small waist, when Mrs. Withrow exclaimed, "Well, will you look at this."

I turned around to find her unwinding an old blanket from what looked like a large pile of rust. Turns out it was a cast iron stove and a bunch more cast iron cook ware. "Do you think Rand could move this?" she asked pointing at the stove.

"Not without some help. That thing must weigh a ton. Will it even fit through the door?"

"If it is dismantled it should. If we can, I believe I'll have Josiah move the pot belly stove into my bedroom and set this one up … it needs cleaning and blackening badly … into the front room in its place. I believe it should fit although I may need to protect the walls somehow. I've got some extra stove board out in the barn that should work."

Whoever gets Mrs. Withrow's honey-do list is in for a pretty big surprise. I had a few surprises of my own coming. "Child, when Rand gets here remind me to have him carry these cast iron pieces down to put in your wagon. You are going to need to clean them and reseason them but they should still have years of life left in them."

"But … but … you've already given us several pieces. Don't you think … "

"No I don't so stop fussing. I said I want you to have these pieces and I don't want to hear another thing about it. Look at this. I haven't seen a Dutch oven this big since I was a girl. And here is a spider that will let you cook bread in a fireplace with no problem at all. And look at this reflector oven. I can just remember my great grandmother using one of those when my mother was still alive. And a rotisserie. Each tool has its own use. You may not need them all the time, but when you need them you'll be glad you have them."

Some other "must haves" she gifted us with included some old milk cans, several wooden benches, and a portable secretary that she said belonged to some relative that had been an officer in the War Between the States. "I've wondered for years what happened to this. Mr. Withrow's two sisters used to fight over it like a couple of dogs over a soup bone. My father in law must have grown tired of the bickering and hidden it up here."

When she would tell stores like that it made me feel lost. She has all these stores of generations worth of people in her family. I feel like I was cut off and denied my family history. And it makes me wonder what has happened to them, if I will ever find out.

Up in the attic there were also tons of old children's toys and games. "What on earth am I going to do with all of this?!" Mrs. Withrow asked temporarily overwhelmed at one point.

"If y'all are starting up a lending library, why don't y'all start a game room or game closet or something for the children? Or you could scrap the game boxes and boards – some of these don't look worth saving anyway – and keep the tokens and make up new games to use them with."

"Hmmmm," was all she replied but she did write something down in her notepad and have me set the games in a different pile downstairs.

If I haven't mentioned it before Mrs. Withrow's house is incredibly free of things that can make you scream and squeal. I asked her about it and she told me her husband's grandmother had some kind of phobia about bugs and critters that didn't belong in the house. When her husband built the house he had to keep this in mind and it is a very tightly built house. Trees and vines were also not allowed to grow too close to the house because it gave pests a bridge to get in.

"Oh the stories I used to hear my mother in law tell; I never met the old woman but everyone said she was a horrible tyrant. One day a week everyone on the farm had to stop and clean everything top to bottom. Her father had been a physician during the War Between the States and her mother had worked in one of the military hospitals of the day. They say she picked up the phobia from listening to her parents tell stories of infections and the dirt and filth that was taken for granted back then but which would kill someone faster than a wound alone would. The little house was actually built as a sick room. Anyone that was sick, even a simple summer cold, was banished from the house until she declared them fit enough to return. My husband was the only baby actually born in the big house and that was because his grandmother was away taking some cure or other down in Sulfur Springs. You know what she wound up dying from child? From arsenic poisoning from handling all the poisons and such that she used to kill and keep pests out of the house. My father in law would always say there was a lesson in the story for a thinking person."

Um, yeah. Pretty gruesome but I guess those things happened a lot back then. I guess the only thing I had to worry about was being crushed by all the junk up in that attic as I tried to make room to move. Looking in the mirror last night I could see my hips and thighs are still bruised. I would shift what I could using my legs as we moved deeper into the gloom at the other end of the attic. There was simply wall-to-wall stuff. There were only a few items we were able to dig out and move ourselves; large embroidery hoops on stands, quilting frames of various sizes, a loom, a canvas bag full of wooden spindles that I think were for spinning, a hat rack and umbrella stand. We drug old rugs wrapped in heavy paper down the stairs and out to the yard to be unwrapped and evaluated. Only one in three were salvageable and most were damaged in some way before they were put in storage.

"Mrs. Withrow, don't take this the wrong way, but why would your family save a rug with a big burn spot in the middle like that? Especially if your husband's grandmother was that crazy about bugs and stuff getting in the house?"

"Child, the mindset of the old folks was different from what we think of these day. There weren't stores like there used to be. For example, look at this one here. Likely this was a mail order item and quite expensive when new. They probably thought it could be repaired at some point or used for something else. You simply didn't throw things away when I was a girl, you would have been considered a scandalous wastrel."

Well there were no scandalous wastrels in the Withrow family, that's for darn sure. We both needed a break and decided to stop for lunch even though it was still shy of when I would normally have served it. As a surprise I had brought shredded pork sandwiches and a wedge of homemade cheese for us to share.

"Honey, you didn't have to do this."

"No ma'am, but I made a basket up for Rand just in case and decided to go ahead and use the leftovers for us. By the way, Rand was wondering … "

"Well tell the boy to stop his wondering, I'm well taken care of in that department. Josiah's father always makes sure I get a share of what he plants on the rented land and my own little garden did well enough for my needs. I do enjoy that applesauce you made and wouldn't say no to a jar if you have one to spare. I like to use it in my baking when I don't have oil." Rand took a couple of jars over to her the next day and I was glad to find something that she needed. I like Mrs. Withrow but feeling this indebted gives me hives.

After lunch we managed to empty the old chiffarobes and armoires. Several trunks still needed investigating but Mrs. Withrow decided to do those on her own during the week. The wind suddenly turned damp and chilly and drove us out of the attic. I shut the window and we went back downstairs and since the sky looked threatening I drug the rugs out of the yard. The worst ones were left on the porch and the better ones I pulled into the house even though they still needed to be beaten out. As we headed to the kitchen to warm up Mrs. Withrow said, "My guess is Rand will be here shortly. If feels like rain on the wind. Did you put a tarp in the wagon?"

"Yes ma'am; ropes and bungee cords too."

"Good, good. I had Josiah put these planks here so Rand could use them to load the wagon."

What she planned on Rand loading into the wagon included several trunks, a wooden filing cabinet, a large butcher block, and a bunch of boxes and bags. Every time I started to look in them to see what they held she'd have me doing something else. It was frustrating and what made it worse was that I realized she was doing it on purpose.

Mrs. Withrow was right as usual. Rand arrived forty-five minutes later just ahead of a rain that was so light it was barely a mist, but the clouds promised it wasn't going to stay that way. Rand's race was as forbidding as the clouds so we loaded as quickly as we could and headed home.

I gave Rand some space and he finally sighed and asked, "You know what I spent half the day doing?"

Well obviously I didn't so I let him keep going without interruption. "I moved the plow over to Uncle George's thinking I would save some time and that it would be safe. I show up this morning and it wasn't where I left it. It wasn't in the shape I left it either when I eventually found it in the field where it had been left. Brendon and Jonathon used it but swear they didn't do the damage. There were two broken pins and the plow looks like it has been drug through gravel."

"What?! Surely they wouldn't lie about something like that?" I exclaimed.

"They admit borrowing it without permission and admit they got so busy they forgot to bring it back to the barn where I had put it. They didn't think it was in any danger because they pushed it back in some trees and tied it to a tree. You can see where someone else took it and pulled it across the road. I followed the path and it led to a field behind the Gilkins place. I confronted Lucretia but she claimed not to know anything about it. Then I caught Lemuel – his surname is Potters by the way – trying to take off unseen and when I questioned him I caught him in a lie. Then he tried to pass it off by claiming that Brendon had given him permission to use it but that he hadn't been the one to break it, that it had been broken when he tried to use it which was why he returned it and had lied about it because he didn't want any more trouble with any of us."

I listened to the rest of the details getting angry myself.

"I got it fixed Babe but I've locked the equipment so that it can't be moved out of Reardon's barn. I've got to go back tomorrow to finish which means I've got to put off Mr. Coffey and Mr. Henderson which means you're gonna have to wait for me to open up that new garden. I'm sorry, I just don't see any way around it."

"Oh Rand, that's all right, we'll make do until you can. It's more important you get your other stuff done in time to meet your commitments."

"I should have done our field first, I just didn't think … and I'm mad as … well, I'm mad. That was irresponsible of Brendon and Jonathon. Brendon I might have expected it from but not Jonathon … and Jonathon acted all holier than thou. I'm hacked. Brendon came over later and apologized again and asked if there was anything he could do. I figured it was mostly my fault for letting it happen by not saying anything in the first place."

"What did Uncle George have to say?"

"He tore Brendon and Jonathon both a new one and he helped me to manufacture some new pins using some spares he had for the big tractors. They work for which I'm grateful. I don't know what we would have done otherwise."

We were both quiet for a while and then Rand went, "Um, there's another thing."

Something on his face told me he hated to tell me this even more than about the plow. "What?"

"Well, when I was angry and working on the plow Missy came over and brought me something to drink. I wasn't really paying any attention to what she was saying. Being caught up between trying to fix the plow and trying not to look at how big she has gotten I just let her talk and would occasionally nod and shake my head when it seemed like she expected it. Then she gives me a hug and walks away like I'd done her a big favor. Brendon must have come around then … that's when he apologized the second time … and he asked, 'You don't know what you just said yes to do you?' Well, for a fact I didn't. When he told me … please don't cry Kiri, I didn't mean to."

"Mean to what?" I asked started to get worried.

"She's going to be over in the morning and I agreed that you'd help her repair a bunch of the clothing that has come into the Shack so that it can go back out."

I got hung up between being mad that he'd agreed to something like that without even asking me and laughing at the way he was squinting like he expected me to hit him or explode. Lucky for him he looked pretty funny. I figured there wasn't much choice at this point so I gave in more gracefully than I would have even a few months ago but I asked him to please not make a habit of it. The look he gave me after that said he didn't know whether it was a good thing or not that I was letting him off the hook. I left him wondering; no sense in giving all my girl secrets away.

The sky picked that moment to open up and really dump on us. Rand only had a brimmed hat and coat to cover up with. He made me put the wagon blanket over myself but all it did was slow the rain down some, I was still as soaked as he was by the time we got home; soaked and freezing.

Rand pulled the wagon up to the porch and then helped me down before unhitching the mules and taking them to the barn to take care of them after their hard day at work and subsequent bath in the cold rain. I got the front door opened up and prayed that the tarp didn't have any pinholes in it to let in the rain that kept coming down by the bucket full. As soon as I was in the house I headed to the kitchen to put a kettle on and then started a fire in the wood stove in our room. I stripped, dried off and got some dry things on but I didn't bother cleaning up the mess that had been tracked in the house until Rand came in and did the same.

Dinner was Spanish style stew; basically a beef stew with raisins and capers cooked in it. Rand like the raisins, the capers not so much. I guess that it s a good thing since I'm on my last little jar of capers. I know you can make "poor man's capers" using nasturtium buds but I'm still looking for the recipe after I misfiled it.

The rain finally quit midway through dinner and the sky lightened just enough that we got most of the stuff off the wagon without having to light a lamp. Nothing got wet thank goodness, but it did have to sit there since I was too tired to do anything with it. Whether I had company coming or not I was all done in and cold from the soaking we'd both gotten.

Yesterday morning came too soon. I really had the pukes and couldn't even face the kitchen. Rand scrambled himself an egg and ate some toast from a loaf of bread I had made a few days earlier. I kept telling him I was sorry and he kept telling me not to worry about it. I swear I will never laugh at even the idea of morning sickness ever, ever again. Every time I think I've got this stuff licked it turns around and comes back even worse than before. Rand thinks it only hits me bad when I'm over tired. Six of one, half a dozen of another; does it really matter? It still bites really bad.

Rand and Missy … who brought Alicia with her … passed each other at the front gate, or so they told me. They had brought bags and bags of stuff with them and I knew right off there was no way we were going to get it all finished and I told them as much.

Missy just breezed out with, "Oh I know that, I just wanted to make sure we didn't run out of things to do."

I looked at Alicia as if to ask her if Missy had lost her mind sometime recently. She turned a laugh into a cough to keep from setting Missy off and we pulled clothing and linens out of the first bag and got started.

What a mess. I must be some kind of vain because I was complaining about not having the right clothes and here there are clothes that barely qualify for the title and people were wearing them and gladly. Alicia's hands were swollen so she wanted to know if I minded if she worked the treadle. After I saw her hands I said she'd better and she better stop eating so much salt or she was going to blow up like a balloon or worse. "Oh poo on you. That's what Pastor Ken said. Stuff just doesn't taste right if there isn't salt in it."

"Well, I always knew the Pastor had good sense," I fired right back at her. "Remind me to give you a bottle of sea salt I have. I'm not sure if you can use it to preserve stuff but it is supposed to be better for you because it is more balanced than table salt which has been stripped of all other minerals. I don't think it takes as much sea salt to make things taste 'salty' either which means you would be eating less and getting the same flavor. If Pastor says that it is out with the salt all together you better listen to him. I have a couple of salt-substitute recipes that we can make up and use to flavor stuff with if it comes to that."

Alicia gave a fake dramatic sigh, laughed, and then we all got down to business. Missy's job was to go through each bag, put matching items together, and then iron them or whatever else needed doing so that we could start the repairs. My job was to do the hand work.

One of the things that I did was instead of trying to sew torn collars back onto t-shirts I would take the collar off and then put a blanket stitch around the edge to keep it from unraveling. Same thing on some of the sleeve ends. Alicia couldn't believe how fast I could do a blanket stitch and a button hole by hand. I explained I'd learned in self defense when Momma would make things for the children's home at Christmas time when I was growing up. "I had to complete so many before I could go play or do whatever and they had to be done right or Momma would make me take them out and do them over. It didn't matter how long it took I still had to do the number that she set. The faster I could get them correctly finished the quicker I could go do something else."

When a shirt or dress had a hole in it too big to sew shut we used fusable interfacing to put appliqués on to hide the hole or Alicia would just sew the appliqué in place if it was a big enough hole. We saved all the scraps of material we cut as you never knew when they'd come in handy for another garment's repair. Some of the pieces were just too ruined to fix and we would take everything off of it, especially buttons, that was still useable.

Some of the items were in good condition; they just had a stain … usually sweat stains. I made up a big tub out on the porch using vinegar and water. More often than not that took care of most of the stains, especially on colored clothes. On something white we made up a solution of half water and half hydrogen peroxide and left it to soak for thirty minutes and then laundered normally.

Out of the blue Missy asks me, "What are you and Rand doing for underwear? That is what we get asked for the most."

After I was able to breathe again after get caught off guard I said, "I take care of … um … repairs and stuff as soon as they need it. Sometimes I have to let things soak … you know cause they get dirty or whatever. We're down a few pairs but so far so good." Missy always hits you out of left field with the most personal questions.

"Well I can tell you there are more than a few people around here going commando. If I could figure out a way to get more bras and panties we'd make a killing."

I gave that one some thought … and tried to stay away from wondering exactly who was going commando these days. "In the old days they used to make bloomers or tap pants with draw strings, and brassieres you could make pretty easy if you used a bathing suit top pattern and just do ties instead of hooks."

Missy and Alicia looked at each other and then looked at me. "Oh no. No, no, no. I've got enough to do without designing women's lingerie."

Alicia laughed but Missy said, "You really should think about it Kiri. You could really have something to trade at the swap meets." Yeah, I need more work like I need a hole in the head. I need to think about clothes for me before I start thinking about other people's underwear. These overalls will do for now but as fast as my gut is expanding they won't last more than a month or two at most. And I'm starting to expand in other areas too. Rand might be fascinated with what is happening but I assure you I am not. I already have enough trouble finding shirts that fit I don't need any other problems like that.

I knew Rand was going to be away for lunch; I packed the leftover stew from the previous night into a thermos for his lunch. It took me a long time to decide what I was going to do for lunch since I was going to have guests. I asked Rand if he minded if I started using up the last of the Ramen noodles and he looked at me like I was crazy for asking. "Babe, you are queen of the kitchen. You do what you think best."

Once upon a time we had literally piles of those cellophane wrapped packages. Now we are down to a few cases but that might be too many unless we start eating them pretty quickly. I found out the hard way when I was still living with Aunt Wilma that Ramen noodles can go rancid and the packages we have are getting pretty far outside their "best used by" date.

For lunch I fixed "Stir Fry Noodles and Rice" and had already assembled all of the ingredients before I started so that no one would see what was in our pantry. I know that sounds paranoid especially considering that Missy and Alicia are supposed to be family but I've found a little paranoia can keep you healthy and out of trouble. The servings I made weren't huge but I had a loaf of banana bread that I made using some of our banana chips that had gotten a little too limp and sticky to eat out of hand. The dessert rounded out the meal and I just told the girls that I had used banana flavoring and a regular quick bread recipe and they bought it.

For the stir fry you need the following: 1 package Ramen noodles (chicken) , 1 cup plain white rice , 1 can tomatoes (any kind) , 1 can veggie of choice, 1 can chicken soup, 1 can chicken, 1/2 tsp. garlic pepper, 1/2 tsp. chili pepper, 1/2 tsp. Creole pepper (if you want some heat), 1 bay leaf (optional), and 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil.

First you start by draining the water from the tomatoes, chicken and your veggie of choice. Use the liquid from the cans or jars to cook the rice and noodles in a fairly good sized sauce pot with the tomatoes and spices. Make sure you have enough liquid for the rice and noodles. While the rice and noodles are cooking, brown the chicken a little bit on a skillet. So far, this should take no more than 10 minutes, however check the noodle and rice packaging for appropriate cooking times, and go with the longer time of the two. Remove the bay leaf when the water is pretty well absorbed. Put the rice/noodle/tomato mix on the chicken, and pour the veggies in. Heat everything up well and then plate it up using tongs or a spaghetti scoop to keep from stringing the noodles all over the place, they can be a mess.

In the middle of the meal Missy asked if I had more pasta as it is always in short supply. All I said was, "I'm using the last to avoid it going rancid. Want my recipe for egg noodles?"

That distracted her enough to get her away from what I considered a dangerous subject and Alicia gave me a half wink over her head. I really like Alicia. We may be the opposite of each other in many ways but we have a lot in common too; we are both inside outsiders to the family.

When Missy stepped outside to go through a couple more bags and to check on the whites that were soaking Alicia said, "Brendon feels really bad about what happened with the plow Kiri. Is … is Rand still furious?"

I thought about it a second and then told her, "Well, he isn't happy but if it doesn't happen again he'll get over it. Rand doesn't carry grudges from what I've seen, especially not with family."

"That's a relief. Father is still very upset and keeps checking up on Brendon and Jonathon to make sure they've put everything away just right. Brendon is a nervous wreck and could barely sleep last night."

"I don't mean to rub it in but the plow thing was pretty bad Alicia. And Uncle George doesn't seem like the easiest man to get along with at the best of times."

"Oh, he's not that bad but he can wear on your nerves if you are over sensitive; he's certainly nowhere near as bad as my dad was. I keep reminding Brendon of that any time he starts complaining about how Father can be so critical."

"Critical; that's a good word for it. The way he used to be with Rand, the way he can still be, nearly had me exploding a few times."

"Of Rand? You're kidding. All he ever does is sing Rand's praises. Rand straightened up his act. Rand went to college. Rand didn't _have_ to get married. Rand has his own land."

"No … way. To be honest I'm surprised that he said anything at all to Jonathon. All I've ever heard is that Jonathon walks on water. And Brendon is THE son and seems to have gotten away with everything."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. I'm not joking. You remember that tiff that Uncle George and I had. I didn't say it because the way he was treating Rand was nice. It was really tearing Rand up inside when he let himself think about it. I think half Rand's problems growing up was because of all the criticism and thinking that he couldn't do any better because that's all he ever heard … from Uncle George, from Mr. Winston, from a lot of people. If it hadn't been for Momma O and her husband and Mr. and Mrs. Withrow who knows what path Rand would have eventually chosen."

"I had no idea. That's not the way Brendon remembers it. Oh sure, he said Rand used to get into a lot of trouble but he always stood up and paid for the situations without asking anyone for anything. He worked for his own money and threw the allowance Uncle George tried to give him back in his face. He worked hard and played hard, was popular, had the prettiest girlfriend in schoo … uh … "

"Don't sweat it Alicia, I know what you mean. Julia is pretty."

"Julia was pretty. Have you seen her lately? She doesn't look anything like when we were in school. All her highlights have grown out. She doesn't wear make up any more. She always looks tired and …"

"Pretty is different now. I saw her last Church service. She's got nice bones and as soon as the baby is sleeping through the night she probably won't look so tired."

"You're right and I'm being an awful jealous cat. I just envied her and those girls she hung out with, like Cassie. Some of the things my Dad used to make me wear to school … I don't even want to think about it. I'm married with a baby on the way and I work from sun up til the sun goes down and I still have more freedom than what I had living in Dad's house. I shouldn't be so catty anymore."

"I guess all our lives are different."

"For a fact. Look, just do me a favor please. Tell Rand that Brendon is really sorry about what happened. Rand is kind of a hero to him and he hates it when they are on the outs. He couldn't even eat breakfast this morning worrying how Rand was going to feel about him coming over to Mr. Reardon's and talking to him."

"I'll tell him but I think Brendon is … I don't know … over reacting or something."

"I don't think so. I know that Father loves Brendon and so does Brendon but it was always Rand that was there for him when things got rough with Mrs. Crenshaw. If you think Father is something else you would have thought he was a saint compared to Brendon's mom. I remember her and she was nice … but cold too. She could be real cutting. I think that is why she and Mrs. Winston got along so well, they were two of a kind."

"That I didn't know. Rand has said some things that made me wonder but he never had anything bad to say about her. In fact he said that Uncle George doted on her and that is why when she died that Uncle George changed."

"Yeah, that's some of it. And I'm not saying Father isn't a good man, just … I guess we can criticize anybody if we look at things close enough and I'm guessing Father only thinks he is trying to help and doesn't see how his criticism hurts as bad as it does."

"Yeah. I think I … um … kinda set him off when I brought it to his attention a couple of times."

Alicia laughed and said, "Oh you could say that, I'm sure."

We didn't have any more time to talk because Missy was calling us to help her bring in the next batch of things to repair but she had given me stuff to think about … and maybe point out to Rand when he gets in a listening mood. The rest of the afternoon passed quickly and then it was time for them to pack up and head home.

"I'll see you soon I hope. I need to get home so that Laurabeth doesn't have to get dinner by herself."

Missy grumbled, "No, we wouldn't want the princess to have to do anything by herself now would we."

"Missy, don't be that way. You know that Laurabeth's back is really hurting."

"Yeah and I told her if she and Jonathon would just try a different posi … "

Alicia and I both shouted, "Missy!" at the same time.

"Lord, what a couple of prudes," she said as she rolled her eyes. "Come on Alicia, let's go before Daddy sends someone out to look for us."

No wonder she and Bill needed their own house. If they hadn't someone would likely have killed Missy by now. I'm honestly surprised Bill hasn't but he seems to get a kick out of the ruckus she creates. Each to his own I suppose.

I cleaned and swept all the bits and pieces that had been left on the floor, started dinner, and was just on the point of getting worried when Rand drove up with the team and wagon. Over dinner Rand told me about his day. "Reardon's field is done and I've moved the plow to Mr. Coffey's. I would have been back sooner but you know how it is once he starts talking. Reardon paid me in sausage – I hung them in the smokehouse – and with five gallons of honey he got from his hives over the summer. Mr. Coffey offered me some tobacco he'd grown but it didn't thrill me any so his son said he'd help enlarge the cooler and we'll get a little feed for the animals as well. They plan on marketing some of their tobacco at the swap meet to see if it is worth the hassle of growing it next season. I know we could take the tobacco in payment and then trade it to someone else but right now I'd rather not trade for something I can't or don't use myself in case we get stuck with it."

"Sounds good as long as you and the team aren't working too hard to get it."

"No, Bud and Lou can pull forever on a fallow field so long as the tree sprouts aren't too bad and Reardon's was only a season or two off cycle. Mr. Coffey could do his own fields but he doesn't want to over work his team since they are older. Henderson on the other hand, that's going to be a job. His men have had to cut down trees and take out stumps by hand and they've had to lever out some good sized pieces of limestone too. I'm going to have to go slow in case there are any big stones still hidden."

"Why doesn't he spend some of that diesel he is supposed to have stockpiled and run a tractor through there?"

"Cost versus benefit. Listening to Mitch it sounds like it has taken a lot more fuel to keep their generators going than expected. Plus I think they've been trading some fuel with someone … and no, I don't know who … to keep their supply of ammunition up. You know that Bill and Clyde have done the same thing to get reloading supplies in."

"Let me guess, Ram has something to do with it."

"Well, no one has said but he seems pretty well known by certain people if you catch my meaning."

"Oh I catch it all right. And he's going to catch it next time I see him. He better not be a black marketer. If he is doing it with his commander's blessings that is one thing but the last thing that hombre loco needs is to get into something that is just as likely to get him killed as it is to make him rich. But it sounds just like him."

"Don't forget, I get front row seats when you do. Should make for some pretty spectacular fireworks."

I was going to sit down for a minute and write in my journal before starting on the stuff that I still hadn't looked at from Mrs. Withrown but I wound up falling asleep instead. All I remember is being cold until Rand came to bed and after that I was so tired I didn't even hear whether Rand snored or not.

This morning I spent an hour trying and failing not to puke again. Rand told me that I'm in the minority; most women get over their morning sickness once their first trimester is over with. That just makes me feel all kinds of special … not.

After Rand left the crisp morning air helped clear my head. The garden is looking good. I pulled the few weeds that are popping up and put a couple of wheelbarrows full of mulch in the places it was showing thin. I paid some much delayed attention to Woofer and Fraidy's fur coats and then I came in and started on the stuff from Mrs. Withrow.

It was like Christmas all over again. One of the trunks held nothing but enamelware and not just the traditional blue speckleware either though that was most of it. There were serving pieces, a colander, another big cowboy coffee pot, mugs, tumblers, bowls, you name it; there were even some spoons and ladles. In the bottom of the trunk was a box and Mrs. Withrow had put a note in there and said that the box held several children's dish sets and when I opened the box I saw that it was an eight place setting and the designs were all children's fairytales.

Another trunk held large baking and serving pieces made of ceramic, glass, porcelain, or clay. There were a lot of Pyrex baking pieces but there were also some huge platters and bowls too. There was also a couple of different size clay baking dishes by Romertopf; Aunt Wilma had had a couple of these too.

In and around all of the dishes she had crammed all kinds of linens including a bunch of pot holders to keep things from clinking together. One of the large pitchers was full of old lace collars and frilly handkerchiefs, so pretty I could hardly imagine using them.

Likewise all of the pieces like the chiffarobe was crammed full of stuff. The chest o' drawers was full of sewing notions, thread, elastic, trimmings, hemming tape and I still don't know what all as I dumped it all in a basket and set it upstairs in the craft room to be divided up into the right drawer and container on a rainy day. It was the last and biggest trunk that choked me up the most. Inside, was her big company tea set, the storage box with her good silver, some pretty filigree picture frames, and some old baby toys like a real stainless steel rattle and a crib mobile that she said had been her oldest son's. In one of the picture frames was a photo of Mrs. Withrow standing beside a man that had to have been her husband. Between the two stood Rand, he couldn't have been much more than twelve or thirteen. He was holding a trophy and it was plain obvious he'd been in some kind of pie eating contest as his face was still covered with it though it was his huge grin that you noticed more than anything else.

I put the picture on the mantel beside the picture of my parents and when Rand saw it he laughed so hard and long his sides hurt. He remembers that day in great detail. He also mentioned that it was right before Mr. Withrow's cancer went terminal. I'll treasure that picture forever.

 **January 19** **th** – Rand was able to get most of the plowing done for Mr. Coffey. He'll have to go back on Monday. He would have finished it up tomorrow but tomorrow is the Swap Meet and I guess we are both excited to go. Mr. Coffey said himself that he was going and that there was no sense in Rand trying to finish it up before next week. Mr. Coffey won't work on the Sabbath, just plain won't so there isn't any need to worry about that. If the weather holds then he'll finish Mr. Coffey's fields on Monday morning and then head straight to the field that Mr. Henderson's men are working on and likely he'll be at that most of next week.

Speaking of, I had another visitor today; two really. Cassie Henderson came by with an escort in tow. "Um, hi Kiri, I heard … oh my goodness, you really are aren't you?"

Assuming she meant that I was pregnant I said, "Nope, I swallowed one too many watermelon seeds and someone started a rumor. Isn't if awful?"

It took her a second to uncross her eyes where I had caught her. I don't think she thought I had a sense of humor. I'll admit it doesn't come out often and when it does it is squeaky and rusty but it does peek out on occasion.

"Well, yeah. Ok. I guess … um … You know, people also think you're a little crazy and that comment would have only egged them on," she smiled.

"Did you need anything specific?"

"Actually Poppy wanted me to come by since Rand wasn't around and he might not appreciate some man dropping by unannounced."

I just raised my eyebrows and waited until she eventually got around to a point.

"Yeah, anyway … Poppy said to tell you to be careful. There's been a few beggars around. They aren't locals even though they claim to be. No one that has seen them knows them and those that they've run into claim they are pretty aggressive. Poppy said you shouldn't be outside unless you're armed."

"Tell your grandfather that I never go anywhere unarmed anymore," showing her the pistol I carried in the holster under my jacket. "But also tell him I appreciate sending you to tell me. All we need around here is more trouble. You'd figure people would be too worried about surviving to waste their time fighting over other people's belongings."

"Tell me about it, we get a lot of them down at the ranch. Most of them are locals and it is pretty sad. One of the reasons that Poppy is opening up that new field is to give some of those men a chance to bring in some food for their families. There's been a few grumbles about him bringing in Rand to do the plowing. They think it is taking work away from them and these days work means food."

"Well, would they rather use picks and shovels to turn that sand and clay? If they let Rand in to do his job they can go about getting their job done better."

"Desperate folks aren't always that logical Kiri," she told me suddenly sounding a whole lot older than she had been before. "Poppy isn't being totally altruistic though. If his men don't have to do the grunt work they can spend more time patrolling and salvaging."

"Salvaging?"

"Um … yeah … about that … "

"Don't sweat it. I'll just ask Rand. I'm sure that Mitch has said something to him," I said trying to edge a little more information out of her just in case Mitch hadn't said anything.

"Maybe. I don't suppose it is a state secret or anything. Poppy has been sending teams out to do some salvaging and to make contact with some … traders. Yeah, that's what he called them, traders."

"Ram Diaz wouldn't just happen to be one of these traders would he?"

"Well, sure. Ram put Poppy in contact with some people all over the state." But she was done "sharing" and decided she needed to be on her way leaving me to get back to deciding what, if anything, I was going to take to the swap meet.

When Rand came home and after he had time to wash up and relax a bit after dinner I told him what Cassie had said. "Cassie has a big mouth. Mitch hasn't said anything to me but I've heard enough that I'd surmised that is what he's been doing. Do you know how many people live on the ranch? It wouldn't surprise me if you included the kids that the number would be over a hundred. That's a lot of people to feed and clothe and supply with guns and ammo the way he does. Don't say anything to anyone else and I'll see what I can find out next week. I'd like to know where Ram fits into this. I know he's your 'brother' and appreciate the stuff he has just given to us but I don't want it if he's got blood on his hands."

Ram's a survivor. He's probably done some pretty … well … bad stuff. I have too if you want to look at it like that. I don't think … no, I don't want to believe that he would be trading in blood like a common pirate but Rand's right, we need to know for sure. The trick is going to be asking him without hurting his feelings. He has been awful good to us.

I'm heading to bed early and for once the sheets won't be cold and clammy; I used that hot iron and yowzer … hot, hot, hot. Rand will be here shortly too so I'm signing off here. We need to be up early if we want to make the swap meet before lunch time.


	75. Chapter 74

Chapter 74

 **January 21** **st** – Being pregnant means I'm going to have to change a lot more than I bargained for. I mean I kind of knew it in an academic way but the reality is a lot harder for me to swallow than I ever thought it would be, what little I had thought about it up to this point. And it's not just that. I guess nothing stays the same. It just seems that things are getting to a point that the … the … I guess you would call it the dynamics of the little community of people is changing. Some people are better than they were, some people worse. The people that had it going on before still have it going on but seem to be expanding and even taking advantage of the way things are now. The people that were barely holding on before for whatever reason seem to have lost their grip and are sliding further down. The straight up people are even straighter and the crazy people are even crazier. Things are getting even more exaggerated than they were before and I'm not exactly sure why. Either way, nothing is standing still; you either move or you get run over.

After the hospital and the wheelchair I became a lot more attached to my personal space and I didn't like people touching me without my permission … and I rarely gave my permission that's for sure. For a while, once I got here I was even worse. All I wanted was to be left alone. But living on Sparkleberry Ranch and having more room and lots less people to interact with I'd gotten used to, with only a few exceptions, having as much space from people as I wanted or needed. I haven't had to really fight for my space the way I had before. I can voluntarily limit the amount of time that I have to be around other people. Even with as much time as Rand and I spend together I still have plenty of space, enough that when we are together I more than welcome the attention he gives me, even crave it sometimes. In fact, Rand has become my one real point of human contact. He's the only person that I trust without reserve, without question. The Swap Meet reminded me all over again why I'm not a people person. It made me remember and realize a lot of things.

I won't even get into the belly rubbing or patting thing that people have a fetish for. I was at least a little prepared, or at least not as surprised, after what I had to put up with at the last church service. What I hadn't counted on was having to leash my own temper and way of doing things, not that I did much of that. Thinking about it makes me wonder if I've changed as much as I thought I had … and if I'm even capable of changing. Or maybe I'm even worse than I used to be. It makes me really wonder what kind of Mom I'm going to be.

Yesterday morning was good. I was only nauseous, not outright sick, and it didn't last long. I could help with morning chores and that made me feel even better, like I was pulling my load and not being such a burden to Rand. He never complains but I can tell a difference in how tired he is at the end of the day when he has to do his work and mine too, even if it is only part of my chores. Since we weren't sure how long we would stay at the swap meet, while breakfast was cooking I also fried up some fruit pies and put some bread, pickles, butter, and jam in a picnic basket for us to snack on in case we beyond lunch. Rand threw some hay into the back of the wagon and I hid the basket and a couple of jugs of water under it to keep from having to carry it around with me.

We would have taken the surrey but Rand wanted the wagon just in case. I would have preferred the sprung seat of the surrey but you can't have everything. Besides, we took Woofer with us. Poor thing was confused when we put a rope on him and acted like he was in trouble for some reason but when he realized he was going to get to ride in the wagon with us he perked right up and got doggy happy all over again. It wasn't quite like riding down the road in a car with the window open but he seemed to enjoy it just the same.

We weren't the first ones to arrive but we weren't the last either. The difference lay mostly in the fact that we weren't setting up a table or blanket, we were just there to look and get a feel for what was going on with everyone else and according to the way Rand phrased it "get a peek at the future," though I'm not quite sure what he means by that. I can guess but I don't think it bothers me as much as it seems to bother him, or at least not the same way. The only thing that really bothers me is in how the way things are – and my part in them – bother Rand. I hadn't had as much time to invest in any particular future as he had. I was also more used to my future plans being sent on a roller coaster ride that was out of my control. I think it makes a difference in how we think about things. But we have enough in common that at times when we come at things from different points of view but still wind up in nearly the same place.

A good example is Woofer. We both thought it was a good idea to bring Woofer along and let him get used to people being again. When other people beside Rand and I are at Sparkleberry Ranch he gets a bit wild … and not in a good or playful way. He's fine if we keep him by our side the whole time but we can't let him away from us because if someone makes the wrong move he goes all wooly wolf and lunges at them. People only though, he's fine with animals which is the only reason Rand thinks that he is reconditionable or retrainable or whatever you call it.

We were both thinking protection, just not in the same way. I was thinking that Woofer could be tied to the wagon and be a guard dog and protect things. Woofer is no longer the scrawny half puppy he used to be; he's bigger and all muscle though he is still a bit scruffy looking. His fur doesn't behave any better than Rand's hair does.

"Rand, this rope … is it long enough for Woofer? I don't want him to get hung up on it."

"The rope is plenty long."

Thinking a bit I asked, "Are you going to tie him to the wagon wheel? That still won't give him much room to move."

"Nope."

Getting confused I asked, "Well then where are you going to tie him?"

"Not going to."

"You're not? But Rand, the wagon and mules are … humph … you said Woofer was coming along to protect our most valuable asset. How's he going to do that running around? What if he gets distracted?"

"He's not going to be running around and, he sure isn't going to get distracted. I said Woofer was going to be protecting _my_ most valuable asset."

OK, at that point I could have let my feelings get hurt but knew Rand couldn't possibly mean what it sounded like he was saying. Rand isn't selfish about the wagon and mules and he is about the only one that it doesn't take work to keep my mouth closed around so I can keep my foot out of it. Instead I just looked at him waiting for him to clarify what he meant. About boy howdy … that was some clarification when it came.

He looked at me, picked up the rope that was tied around Woofer's collar and then wrapped the free end around my hand. "Woofer … guard!" Then he tilted my chin back and kissed me square on the lips for everyone and God to see. I was so stunned that not even the whistles and cheers coming from Hoss and Bradley who had arrived with several of Mr. Henderson's other men broke off what I was concentrating on.

"Kiri, the world could burn down around me for all I care. You … you and the baby … you are the most valuable thing on Earth to me. So I'm asking you … nicely as I can … if you find yourself in a scrape of some kind to let Woofer do his job. OK?"

I was still uncrossing my eyes from that kiss so all that I could squeak out was, "OK."

Suddenly a voice from behind me says, "Jeezly crow Joiner, you brought that dang crazy dog with you."

"Yup."

"All you have to say is 'yup'?" Hoss asked incredulously.

"Yup."

"Well I'll be son … let's hope people got smarts enough to give Kiri a wide berth. Blasted animal could take down a Brahma bull by itself, or give it a good shot anyway."

Hoss did a double step backwards when Woofer turned to look at him and give him a doggy grin. Rand said I grinned too which is why Hoss took two steps and not just one. "Woofer, behave. Hoss is a friend. Friend, you hear? We don't eat our friends. Well, not often. Hoss, let him smell your hand."

"Kiri, I know I ain't the sharpest crayon in the box but ain't no way I'm gonna stick my hand down at that dog's mouth. I saw what he did to Bradley's pant leg when he jump off that fence and accidentally knocked into Rand."

I said, "Aw, don't hold that against him Hoss. He hadn't been with us long and he didn't really mean it."

Bradley came up at that point and said, "Hang fire if he didn't. But I don't hold it against him none. Good guard dogs are worth their weight in gold and then some. Ain't that right pooch. You're a good dog you are. You get a little older I know a pretty little hound that I want to introduce you to. Her looks and your disposition should make one heck of a litter."

OK, that was enough for me. It's like birth and rebirth and the stuff that gets you there is about all that is on people's minds these days, I couldn't escape it.

I can't tell the number of times that I nearly tripped over Woofer while we were at the swap meet. He didn't twine between my legs as bad as Fraidy but my goodness, sometimes he could just sit right on my feet so that I couldn't go anywhere. Mostly that would happen if there was a clump of people in front of us. A few times he drug me in a direction I hadn't intended on going but for the most part I guess we made out OK. I was glad to have him a few times when strange men got a little closer than strictly necessary.

I saw Mrs. Withrow sitting at a table under a tree with some other ladies that looked familiar. I told Rand where I was going and then headed across the still fairly empty field to say hello. She pointed to where Brendon and Jonathon and the boys were unloading two wagons.

"Good suggestion child. People have been taking things off so fast that the boys just about haven't had to do anything but stand back. That's a load off my mind and Josiah and his wife now have room to bring in the things they had stored out in his daddy's barn and make the house their own. I do have some more things that I want Rand to come pick up but I do believe after today everything else should be settled."

I told her that I would let Rand know but Woofer was getting a little restless so we moved on. I heard someone call my name and turn to keep Woofer close when I saw Pastor Ken walking towards me. "Oh … hello Woofer. Do you mind if I have a word with your mistress?"

Woofer has finally come to terms with Ken coming over to the house. I wouldn't call him friendly to Ken but he doesn't get near as bent out of shape with him as he does with everyone else. Basically all Ken wanted to know was how I was feeling and if I'd had anymore pains. I had, but not bad ones.

"Still mild?"

"Pretty much. You said to keep an eye on them and I am. Mostly it just happens when I turn to the right too fast. If I watch what I'm doing then it isn't really noticeable much."

"Hmmm. That's a lot of qualifiers in there. If it gets worse, even if it is just a little, I want to know about it." Then he went on to visit with a few men I recognized from the Amen pew.

"What did Ken want?" Rand asked making me jump since I hadn't heard him come up behind me.

"Huh? Oh, he was just asking how I was feeling," I answered wondering how much Rand had heard.

"Why? Haven't you been feeling all right?"

"Geez Louise, Rand. I'm fine. I'm really, really, really fine. Ken was just doing his job. I made it to the short list of people that he plans on checking on regularly. I wish you wouldn't act like I'm going to break at any second. It makes me feel bad, like I'm a burden or something."

"Sorry Babe. I'm trying. But … you would tell me if there was a problem, right?"

"Rand, there is no problem. I'm not made of spun sugar, I won't dissolve with no warning. I promise I feel fine."

"That's not exactly what I asked but I guess it'll have to do. Have you been to any of the booths yet?"

We hadn't been there long and there was already more than twice as many people and booths as when we had arrived; I hadn't noticed until then since I was standing in the middle. I realized I needed to start paying better attention to what was going on around me, like I used to. I was getting out of habits that I needed and getting into habits that I could do without. What happened later only reinforced that realization.

Right as we were about to start walking around Rand got called over by a group of men. I saw he was eager to go and told him I didn't need a babysitter and to go be with his friends. Took me a few tries but I finally convinced him.

It was still brisk and I was glad of the coat I was wearing and Woofer who was leaning against my legs. "Ok, since you won't let me go that way dog, which way will you let me walk your majesty?"

Woofer started taking me for a walk towards the less busy booths. The crazy dog wouldn't let me get too close but I at least got a look at what was at the different tables. I saw knitted items; braided rugs; sandal-like shoes made from tires; shredded plastic bags that had been woven or crocheted into other items; plastic or aluminum squares that had been crocheted together to make carriers, hats and lots of other things; empty cans that had been snipped and bent into useful objects like lanterns and storage containers; empty juice envelopes that had been sewn together to make useful items. There were lots of items that people obviously brought from their own homes like clothes, small furniture items, hangers, wire, nails, tools, etc. Someone had even made a bunch of toys from wood.

There were also tables with food items like dried corn – both kernel and whole cob, jerky that was mostly venison, dried beans – mostly soy and black eyed, some dried pears and blackberries, and a cooler with fresh fish swimming just enough to stay alive a while longer. There were several tables set up that were selling seedlings, of both vegetable and tree varieties.

There were also what I have started calling the "craftsmen" types. I'm sure it isn't what some learned academic type would call the folks like that but I don't know what else to call them; skilled laborers maybe, though most of them were way more than that. They were advertising specific skills they had and not just stuff to sell. There were metalsmiths, blacksmiths, and blacksmiths; planters and harvesters; breeders of all types of farm animals and if they weren't breeders they were trainers; weavers, seamstresses, and special types of needlework. There were carpenters, roofers, and furniture makers. There were tables with leather and animal hides next to people who were cobblers and who made harness and tack for animals. There were people who could take old truck bodies and turn them into wagons. There was a man there who said he knew how to clean and repair chimneys, and if you didn't have a fireplace his brother knew how to build one for you.

I saw Uncle George talking to several people and when I walked by I heard them bargaining for the next litter of piglets or asking him about calves or studding services. I wasn't wading into that many men just to say hello so I kept going; didn't really have a choice as Woofer kept pulling me along.

By the time I'd gone around twice, I wasn't bored exactly but I'd seen everything that interested me and was looking around to see what Rand was up to. That was when I saw a knot of men over to the side well away from the booths and there was obviously a brawl going on. That's when I heard, "A pint on Joiner." And then, "Two on Gilkins and his brothers."

I know I promised. I know I did. Well, sorta. I said I would try. Try being the operative word. But I dare any wife or girlfriend, mother or even sister not to develop a sudden suspicion in their head and a zing in their step when they hear words similar to that.

As I walked by Uncle George I called, "Brendon! Jonathon! Clyde!"

Uncle George said, "Boys, better run and catch her. She's on fire about something."

"So long as it ain't at me," Brendon muttered grimly.

Woofer didn't know whether to pull me faster or prevent me from going faster. I wound up grabbing him by his collar and dragging him along. He's a dog. He's not going to disobey a direct order from his owner even if it is the direct opposite of a previous order. Dogs are smart but few of them can really do more than give the appearance of human level reasoning. I got up to the wall of male backs and they weren't moving.

I shouted, "Move!" and no one paid me any attention. The guys ran up at that point and pushed their way through. The noise on the other side only got worse and more of it. I'd finally had enough. I took the rope off Woofer's collar and said, "Get Rand boy. Go get Rand!"

Woofer was through the legs in front of him like greased lightning and it was only seconds before I heard snapping and snarling and screams of pain. "Who's dog is this?! Call 'em off!" Other things were said as well but they aren't worth printing for posterity.

I wasn't satisfied until I heard Jonathon shout, "Call your dog Rand, he's gonna tear out someone's throat in about two seconds!"

"Woofer! Woofer! Heel doggone it. You're supposed to be guarding Kiri you mangy mutt!"

Then a guttural voice said, "I'm gonna kill me a dog and a man, two fer one."

Of course that's when I pointed the pistol I had already pulled out as soon as Woofer took off, aimed it at the trunk of the nearest tree and pulled the trigger. The 9 mm was awful loud but it was followed by an even louder silence in the whole swap meet.

Very carefully I spoke into the silence and said, "My Daddy always said to never pull a gun out if you weren't absolutely prepared to use it. Would anyone like to ask me just how prepared I am right now? I'd be really happy to enlighten you. Any takers? Come on boys, I'm in the mood to demonstrate and show just how good a teacher I've had."

Uncle George limped up then and said, "What in the Sam Hill is going on here?!"

Mr. Henderson in a very forbidding voice said, "I'd be interested in finding that out myself."

The men finally parted and gave me a view of Rand still struggling up from the ground helped by Brendon and Jonathon. Blood ran from several cuts on his face, his shirt was torn, and he looked hotter than a road flare. Clyde was still going at it with some guy and there were three others that had obviously been in the brawl standing defiantly a little off to the side.

Something in my snapped, or maybe broke is a better word for it. Four. There had been four against one. There was a ringing in my ears and I could feel that numb feeling creeping over me only this time it wasn't cold … it was hot, boiling, steaming, like I was broiling in the desert. The look on my face must have alerted Rand because he started towards me. I didn't hear him call my name.

Everything stood out like a picture on one of those real expensive HD televisions used to. I remember thinking, "I won't lose him too. I won't. I won't lose him too. I won't …. " over and over. I think that is why when one of the guys pulled a bowie knife I was prepared.

He lunged. Right at Rand. But before he'd taken more than a half-step the 9mm that I hadn't holstered yet was up. I gave no warning this time. There was no mercy. I wasn't going to be left alone, not again. One target, one bullet. I didn't even have to think about plinking cans.

My gun followed the man's body down to the ground and I was completely ready to put another bullet in him if he moved, but there was no need. The bullet, as close I had been, did so much damage to his chest that the only skills Pastor Ken needed was figuring out what he was going to say at the graveside service.

As soon as I was sure that the guy on the ground wasn't moving then or in the future my gun came up and covered the other two guys that I considered the most immediate threat as they too had been going for weapons and heading in Rand's directions, the other guy had just been quicker.

It felt like I was moving in slow motion but at some point I heard Jonathon asking Clyde if he had seen how fast I moved. Right then I still wasn't hearing anything. That happens when I'm hyper focused. All I saw were the threats in front of me. I didn't even notice that one of them had wet his drawers. They say that people had been trying to calm me down but I don't recall. They say that my face was a death mask. I'll take that with a grain of salt since it sounds like too much of an exaggeration. They also say that it was obvious that something was wrong, that I can believe because I wasn't really there, not mentally.

I don't know how long I would have stood like that but I felt Rand as he came around behind me. "Kiri. Babe. Uncle George and Mr. Henderson and some of the other men have things in hand. Come on. I'm right here. Everything's OK."

His hands slid down my arms and then over my hands that had a death grip on the pistol. "I'm right here Babe. Right here."

It took everything I had to willingly soften my grip and let him take the gun. But then my heart just about burst when I realized he wasn't putting it in his holster but tucking it back into mine. I thought, "I might be crazy, but not so crazy that he doesn't trust me with the gun. He took the gun, but he didn't take the gun away."

As bad off as I was I still understood that. He gently turned me around and put his arms around me and whispered again in my ear, "I'm right here. I'm not going nowhere."

That's when the heat turned to ice and I started to shake, not so other people would notice but Rand, holding me against him, felt it. He started leading me away from the knot of men that still weren't really moving from the spot they'd gotten glued to.

For a while I was pretty foggy. They told me later the only coherent thing that came out of my mouth for about twenty minutes was, "Four. It was four against one. No. No, no, no. Not again."

Mrs. Withrow was there when I started coming back to myself. "It's OK honey child. Everything's OK now."

I was rocking back and forth. To my shame there were tears on my face. I never cried in public. Never. But here I was with tears on my face for everyone to see. I wiped my face and looked at my hand, trying to comprehend the fact that my face was wet.

"Rand. Rand?! Where's Rand?!"

"Easy child. He'll be right back. He's talking to some of the elders, explaining what happened from his side of things."

I wanted to get up and go look for him. I realized I was still a little off though because when I went to stand up things tilted and it was either sit down or fall down.

Mrs. Withrow must have signaled someone because suddenly Pastor Ken was there. "I don't think so Kiri. Come on now. Let's get those feet back up and I want you to stay sat. Come on now, you can humor me for a few minutes can't you?"

I focused on him and asked, "Where's Rand? Is he OK? Did the guy with the knife … "

"Rand is fine, or will be now that you aren't so shocky. You scared … "

"There were four of them! Four! Four against one! How could he be OK?!" I could hear panic in my voice but I couldn't seem to control it. Didn't really feel like controlling it if I'm completely honest.

"Rand is tough as old shoe leather. He's a little banged up, gonna be sore for a day or two, but he's OK. Now hold still and be good and let me take your blood pressure again."

Old habits die hard and Ken was my doctor as well as my Pastor. I tried to stay as calm as possible. I at least registered that if I didn't stay calm the blood pressure reading was going to cause me trouble. I learned that in the hospital. I learned that when they came to take my blood pressure I could focus and moderate my breathing and that helped to moderate my heart beats.

"Hmmmm," Ken said suspiciously. "Your pressure is much better but you still aren't off the hook. I want you to lean back here and keep your feet up."

Mrs. Withrow said, "I'll stay with her but you better get that boy over here quick. Tell those old fools that he's talking to that whatever they want can wait. She needs to see Rand and I mean right now." Several other ladies that were sitting around near me nodded their heads and said, "Uh huh, Pastor … you can tell my husband for one." "Mine too, you tell him to let that boy come over here right now."

Thank God for Mrs. Withrow. I don't know how she understood but she did. And the other ladies. I didn't know how to tell them how glad I was that someone understood. I felt cold, like I would never warm up again. And part of it was that I wasn't sorry that I had killed that man. Now, with just a little distance from what happened I'm remorseful that it came to that but I can't even pretend that I wouldn't do the same thing all over again if presented with the same situation. I don't know if there is something wrong with my conscience or if it goes deeper than that. What kind of mother am I going to be?

Rand was there before I had time to worry at it any more. He gathered me up in a hug and I whispered into his chest, "I want to go home. Let's go home Rand. Now. I just want us to go, to go home where we are safe."

His hug tightened for a minute and then he whispered back, "We need to stay for a while longer."

"Why? Am I in trouble? Am I … "

"Shhhhh … no … no, not that. Enough people saw what Harris was aiming to do. It's not that. And no, I'm not in any trouble either so don't look like that. We just need to stay for a while longer."

"Why? Rand … "

"Babe, we'll talk about it in a little while. OK? After things have calmed down. When we get home. Right now just … just trust me Kiri. People need to see how you feel and … Babe, just trust me. We'll go home soon. OK?"

I did trust him and I knew that something else was going on but it was beyond me to be able to figure it out right then. So I stayed with Mrs. Withrow and the other ladies while he went away to do other things. I was upset that he would leave, go where I couldn't see him. I knew as soon as I thought it that I was being irrational but that is the way I felt at that moment.

But it got worse, I wanted to dig a hole and crawl in. People kept coming by. I could feel them staring. Some insisted on coming around and patting me or giving me a hug. They didn't understand that what they were doing only made me want to pull inside myself more. I had just enough sense left to know that most of them only wanted to be nice, like most of the hospital staff. They didn't mean to rub against my psyche like coarse sandpaper. I kept hearing, "It's going to be all right now."

Now? It was all right before … before that Harris tried to destroy my world, to make me alone again. Now didn't feel like it would ever be all right again. It was the VRC all over again. I wanted to leave. I was desperate to leave but Rand said we needed to stay and even in as bad a shape as I was in I knew that Rand wouldn't make me stay for no good reason.

I was just beginning to get control of myself when things got bad again. I saw the older ladies had started to fluff up like mother hens and I heard some protesting then she was there, in my face.

"You're nothing but a murderer. Look at you, sitting there, acting like you're crazy. But you aren't are you? You're crafty. You don't belong around here, you never have. You think just because you're parents built that place that … "

Mrs. Withrow said, "Lucretia Gilkins, that's quite enough."

"Enough? I haven't even started. My poor brother in law was left lying in the dirt. What am I supposed to tell my children about their uncle?"

I couldn't let these frail old ladies defend me. I turned my head and looked her in the eye and said, "You won't be telling your children anything. You lost them because you were more interested in feeling sorry for yourself than you were in taking care of them. As for that poor excuse of an uncle they had, he pulled a knife and would have killed my husband. We won't talk about your husband and what a poor excuse of a provider he was, what a drunk; everyone already knows that sad story. Having any better luck with the man that you moved into your bed before your husband's corpse was even in the ground a day?"

She was nearly choking on her venom, "You worthless piece of …. How dare you talk to me like that? Is that kid even Rand's? I put all the stories I used to hear about you down to people trying to create a new boogie man to scare their kids with. I thought Rand had better sense … and better taste. But you're even worse that what people said. You're a sociopath. You have no remorse for any of the people you've murdered do you? When that kid's born they better take it away or you'll kill it too."

I heard the other women gasp. I never got the chance to answer back, though I'm not sure what I would have sad. Tia Cia had showed up and she had blood in her eye.

"Get … a … way … now. Do not ever think you can come begging for help at the Ranch again. You are now nada y nadie to me. And you can tell that to your husband's kinsmen as well. They proved they are traidor … treacherous."

"I guess Henderson has more to say about that than you do housekeeper."

Mr. Henderson stepped up and said, "That's Mrs. Henderson to you. And everyone else too. Cia and I were married last night."

For the first time Lucretia looked scared. "No. No you … you can't do that. We buy corn and feed from you. We have a contract."

"I had a contract with your husband. He's dead and I haven't received payment for the shipment he received. I call the contract null and void. End of discussion. Besides, you aren't going to need anything like that in the near term, your other brother in laws are going to be busy working off what they owe me. And other people are coming to take payment on what you owe, one way or the other. I doubt if you'll be doing much more than barely getting by any time soon. You've burnt too many of your bridges Lucretia."

Then he turned to me, "Kiri, girl, you don't listen to a single, poisonous word that woman says. She let her husband's drunkenness eat her all up. She's been like that for a while. Hard times is only making her worse. Did you hear what I said?"

I wanted to tell him it was OK, that I was OK, but all that came out was, "Where's Rand?"

Mr. Henderson sighed then looked at Uncle George who had walked over, "He's taking care of a few other things. And he's helping to bury the body."

"Wha … what?! Why?! I should be with him, helping him."

"Talk sense girl. You're in no condition to be up to something like that. Now you stay here." He tipped his hat to the ladies and he walked over to Uncle George and they started talking but with all the other low conversation going on I couldn't understand anything that was being said. Tia Cia was talking quietly to the ladies, Cassie was with her but when she saw me looking around she came over and sat beside me.

"It really will be OK Kiri. Really. But you need to try and … not be upset. Think about the baby."

"Huh?"

"The baby … think about the baby. You know you can't … can't … the shock isn't good for you or the baby. Pastor Ken …"

"What did he say?" I asked, started to get worried.

"Um … " she said starting to look around a little desperately.

"Cassie … p p p please." I was ready to beg at that point. I hadn't been thinking about the baby, not in those terms.

She sighed and then leaned forward, "Shock for someone who is pregnant is life threatening. He's saying one of the reasons you were so out of it is because your blood pressure and other metabolic stuff was affected. He didn't want you moved for a while just in case …"

"Just in case what?"

"Just in case Kiri. You know what I mean. The other part … the other part I think I get better than the men do. I might not have before but now I think I do. And listen to me Kiri … Rand isn't going any place. He's fine. As for the fighting, it used to drive us girls crazy growing up. The boys were always fighting and Rand was one of the worst, always having to prove himself. He grew out of it but not out of the … toughness I guess you want to call it because it is part of who he is. It's not just … um … how can I say this? Look when the boys brawled with each other it wasn't always the biggest guy that won. Or the craftiest fighter. Usually it was the one that could outlast the others. It's not that Rand never lost a fight, it's just that except for a few occasions when he lost it's just because he got bored or tired of it and went down on his own. A lot depended on who he was fighting and Harris isn't one he would have just laid down and surrendered to. Especially … "

"Especially?"

She wouldn't look me in the eye but did answer, "They were name calling and making threats … against y'alls place, the animals …" and after a deep sigh, "against you. Asking if the baby was really Rand's and saying some other nasty stuff about you. From what I heard listening to Mitch they weren't the kinds of threats that Rand could or would allow himself to ignore. And the Gilkins brothers have gotten a reputation the last few months if you know what I mean … of fulfilling their threats. They're bullies, but they're dangerous bullies and this isn't the school playground."

I was confused. "Wait, people said this guy's name was Harris."

"Yeah, Harris Gilkins. He's the … was the youngest brother of about 8 boys. They were almost like stair step kids. Lucretia's husband was one of them. Mark and Steve died of the flu. Harris … well, you kinda met Harris. Marshall, Davis, and Johnson were the other three in the fight. Levi … Levi was disowned by the family about five years ago when he turned Steve into the cops for a bad beating he gave some girl he was dating at the time. He's a minister over in Lake City and Pastor Ken talks to him every week or so to find out how things are going over there."

"Has this … what I did … started a feud?"

"Poppy is handling it Kiri. So is Rand. It'll only be a real feud if other people take sides. That's probably why Rand doesn't want to leave yet. He needs people to see he isn't afraid and he needs people to see how upset you are … that you aren't just running away like cowards. Those guys really do owe Poppy and … he's um … sending them someplace to work it off. That really only leaves Lucretia and Lemuel. Lemuel won't get involved. Mitch said he is a coward and hated the Gilkins brothers because they treated him so bad. Lucretia will run her mouth but with the brothers not here to back her up I doubt she'll do anything but run her mouth. I wouldn't turn my back on her though."

Cassie looked over at Tia Cia and then back at me and after hesitating asked, "Kiri, what's the word for grandmother? In Spanish I mean."

"Abuela or some people say Abuelita."

"Abuel –ee-ta? Is that how you pronounce it?"

"Yeah … why?"

"I don't know what to call her. She's not … I mean she's not just an auntie to me now. She's Poppy's wife. What do I call her? No way do I feel comfortable calling her Cia or Hortencia."

"So why don't you ask her?"

"Because I … because I want to do this right. I've made a mess of things Kiri. This thing with Poppy … I want him to be happy, it's just so weird."

My head was spinning and I had just killed a man, and she thought I had answers for her? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Talk to her Cassie, you might be surprised what she says. She's seems like a cool lady."

"Talk about what to whom?" Tia Cia asked catching us both unprepared.

"She wanted to know what the word for grandmother was in Spanish," I answered for both of us.

I thought Cassie was going to have a coronary but the look on Tia Cia's face was priceless. "Oh, me chiquita," and she wrapped strong arms around Cassie in a big hug. It only took a second for Cassie to shyly hug her back. Whatever happens from here on out, at least they seem to be on a better path.

I wish I felt as confident for myself. I didn't know what to do with myself until someone handed me a cup of tea. It was sweet, someone had over done the honey … or so I thought at the time.

Rand came back a few minutes later with Woofer in tow. Rand's face was … I don't know how to put into words what his expression was, all I know is that there was a lot going on under the surface but I don't think too many people recognized that. I did.

I didn't have much choice at that point. I had wanted to go home but now I didn't know if I did. Going home meant dealing with what was under the surface.


	76. Chapter 75

Chapter 75

I was going to walk but Rand wouldn't hear of it. "No. End of discussion. Ken says you are to stay off your feet for a while. Don't wriggle or I'll find a wheelbarrow and dump you in it."

I suppose I would normally have gotten hacked off at that kind of bossiness but I was beginning to feel even more detached from reality than I already was. And I was confused about whether he was trying to tease me about the time I'd put him in a wheelbarrow or if he was finally all out of patience with me and a wheelbarrow would just have been convenient. He wouldn't let anyone else touch me which I suppose should have told me something since I know it must have hurt him after the fight. He did let Brendon help him to put me in the back of the wagon but nothing beyond that.

"I want you to lay here. Don't … just don't Kiri."

"Don't what?" I wondered in my head as he covered me with a blanket that someone passed up to him. I heard him talking to Ken, something about him following us back to the house. It was at that point that things got fuzzy around the edges.

Next time I can recall opening my eyes I was tucked up in our bed. The stove was lit and it had been lit at least long enough to chase all the damp from the room. I lifted my head and then nearly jumped out of my skin when Rand leaned forward from the chair he'd been sitting in.

"Hi, you awake now?"

"Yeah, I guess. What … that drink. Rand, I think somebody doped my drink!"

"Easy. It was a mild sedative, that's all. It actually wasn't supposed to make you fall asleep, just keep you quiet and comfortable until we could get you home."

"What?! You told them they could … And I suppose I'm not supposed to be upset about that, right?" But then I just ran out of energy to fight and decided it just wasn't worth it. "Yeah. Ok. So I guess I was a mess. But what's going on? Why … ? I don't … something's not … still not right."

I was so disoriented. I'm still a little confused, just for real now and not from a drug. It's helped to try and make sense of things by writing them out. I sort of understand why they did it but couldn't they have just explained it to me first? Surely I wasn't that far gone that I wouldn't have understood.

"Rand? Something's wrong. I know you said no but, I'm in a lot of trouble aren't I?"

"No. No, it wasn't near as bad as … well as I was worried it was going to be. The Gilkins brothers have lost a lot of friends and made at least as twice that many enemies the last couple of months. And a lot of people saw what happened. But Babe … I … "

Tired of being confused and on the edge of getting angry I said, "Rand, I'd rather you just say it instead of leaving me to guess it."

"Why? Why did you come over and get involved? How could you not think … "

"Think? About what?"

"About what?! You're carrying my baby! I …" He shook his head and then said, "No. Ken said you need to have calm for a while. That … that this is all … it's like a sum total of … all the stuff you've been through and … "

Still feeling snarky I said, "You mean he thinks I'm three-quarters crazy and that's what he's telling other people. And that's what is keeping me out of trouble, not because anyone really believes that what I did was self defense."

"Babe … it's not like that … it's … "

"Rand, I don't need to be pacified! I … I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. Look, I admit it's been a long time since I have felt that angry. I … I don't have an excuse and I'm not going to try and make one up. When I saw … what I saw … there were four of them Rand … four against one. I could have lost … alone … all alone Rand. I couldn't stand it. I just couldn't …."

And I broke down all over again. I was shaking and it took what little bit I had left not to wail and rock back and forth like I really was crazy. "Kiri I don't understand what you mean … Wait. Alone? Were you … you thought … That's why … ? Mrs. Withrow was trying to tell me something but … that was what this was all about? It wasn't about you thinking I couldn't take care of myself, that you needed to help me? You thought that … Kiri, Babe, look at me."

But I was close to losing it again. I still don't know what was wrong with me; if it was left over shock or hormones or left over sedative, or if I really was having a case of the crazies. All I could do was scramble to the bathroom and puke; only there wasn't anything to puke up so I just heaved and gagged, barely able to breathe and causing little red dots to break out all over my face that are just now disappearing. I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast and I had no idea what time it was because Rand had left the shutters closed. It was later, that's all I know.

It took a while but I finally calmed down enough that Rand could take me back to the bed. I felt cold again. Some of it was being on the tile of the bathroom floor but some of it was cold on the inside, the kind that nothing can warm up. I felt so ashamed of how weak I was. Me. The girl who doesn't need anyone. The girl who survived the wreck, crawled out of the wheelchair when everyone said I never would, made it through foster care, lived through the worst highschool could throw at me, survived the flu and the warehouse, travelled by myself all the way from Tampa. And here I was crying like a baby, scared of being alone. In the end all of it was too much; I think I shut down again.

The next thing I remember is Rand's voice and Uncle George's sitting in chairs over by the stove. "Son, fear is like a wild beast. You used to scare me to death with some of the things you would get up to but it never seemed to phase you at all. I wondered if there was anything you were afraid of. Hanging tobacco for old man Upton in those old barn rafters like you was a monkey, racing cars and playing chicken out on River Road like you wasn't afraid of dying, all those fights, some with grown men twice your size. It would eat at me sometimes and I know I didn't always handle you well. After your aunt died I didn't have anyone to share the burden of those fears with, fears for you or fears for the other children. I was on my own with you children to raise. It was so bad some nights that between the fear and the loneliness I could barely breathe much less sleep. All I could do was read the Bible and pray the sun would rise."

"I … I didn't know."

"I didn't want you, any of you, to know so I kept it inside. But you are about to be a father and you need to learn how to be the right kind of strong when that is the last thing you think you can be; I wasn't always the right kind of strong. I didn't always go about it right and part of that is I couldn't admit to anyone I was weak, especially not you kids. There were things that needed doing. The farm, paying the bills, keeping you kids fed and clothed … bailing you and Brendon out of trouble but at the same time figuring out when not to bail you out so you'd learn a lesson and not make the same mistakes again. Looking back I don't know how I did it. People kept telling me to get remarried so I'd have a helpmate, I just couldn't stomach the idea. You learn to live with things day in and day out you never could have imagined you'd have to face even once. But then, out of the blue suddenly holding all of that in will turn around in slap you in the face so hard you see stars."

"But I still don't understand. Kiri … she … "

"Boy, none of us knows exactly how bad her life was. You've told me some things tonight, makes me understand her better, but even you don't know how bad she was hurt. You've seen the scars she has on the outside, but do you know all the scars she has on the inside? If I had to guess, I'd say probably not. She was strong on her own for as long as she needed to be or maybe just as long as she had to be. Then you come along and she starts getting comfortable with the idea that she ain't got to fight by herself no more. She ain't got to be on her guard quite so much cause someone's got her back. She probably hadn't had that since her family died from the sound of it. You found the one chink in her armor. She was lonesome for friendship, real friendship."

"I didn't take advantage of her!"

"Good Lord, I didn't say you did Son. She's been good for you too. I wasn't the only one what noticed you two got on from the get go and how you seemed to be different when she was around. Not by a long shot. And you've turned into a fine husband if I'm allowed to say so."

"She's always been different from the other girls."

"She is that Son. She is that. And she's strong, stronger than maybe even you understand. But Boy I'll tell you for a fact she was shook up after the VRC, and it wasn't from that big Russian choking her. We was all tore up but Kiri … Boy, I don't think you realize just how shook she was. Henderson let slip some of the things his men saw. He said the men gave her some space cause it looked like she could have dug that Rooskie up and done worse to him than what was already done. She's hid it well but I don't think she got over it quite as well as maybe she let on."

"She came back from that, she'll come back from this. She has to. I just don't understand why … why she's sleeping like this. And after it happened, it's like she ... she … Uncle George I've never seen her like this. We've had a couple of rough spells but nothing like this."

"Boy, ain't you listening to me?" He paused like he was at a loss for words then continued. "Son, you want to know why I decided to take myself off the Deacon's list? It was having to sit with women as their husband's were dying. Or help them when they were widows, trying not to hear them tell stories about their man and how he used to do this, that, or the other; trying not to hear the loneliness. It called to my own too much. It's not that the work they asked of me was too hard. The work I could do. It was being around … around … They had holes in 'em Son, holes so full of sorrow you could just about see it with your regular eyes; deep wells of it. It was seeing them know that their protector and lover was gone and wasn't coming back. You remember how Mrs. Withrow was and how she was almost content to give up when she got sick not long after her Mister died. I still don't know what kept her hanging on for as long as she did. And Kiri's already got sorrow holes in her. I recon she feels like losing you would just be too much and she'd be nothing but sorrow at that point."

"Kiri isn't like that. And she's young. We haven't even known each other a year. If something did happen to me she could get over it."

"You think so Boy? For her to be so young she's already suffered more than most have at twice her age. And what about you? How easy would it be for you to get on if this baby takes Kiri away? You got a potential wife picked out in case she dies in childbirth and you need some help raising the baby? Hmmm?"

"Don't say that!" I heard Rand snarl in a tone I've never heard him use with his uncle.

"Not so easy when the shoe is on the other foot is it Boy? And she does have this baby to think of now. She's probably scared to death and not even realizing it yet. Probably what happened was everything just hit her. You already told me she had problems dealing with the feelings when she had to kill those other men. Kiri is something else, and I'm not sure what, but a natural born killer ain't it. She does what she feels necessary but it don't ride easy on her. All her talk says she doesn't care about other people and what they think but her actions say the exact opposite. Look how she is with Momma O and Mrs. Withrow, You see how she is with the boys. Even you, in the beginning; she didn't have to bring you in and take care of you. The way you looked some would have just run away and let the vultures have you. She's even made nice with Ron and Julia though she's got reason enough to stay away from them. But she's just let it go and I guess that is more for your sake than for theirs. Even if its true and she doesn't care much about other people for their sake or her own, she'll care about them for your sake. She can accept the caring if she thinks she is doing it for your sake. That's how she justifies letting people get closer when she wouldn't normally allow it for all the tea in China."

I floated in and out for another hour I guess, long enough to hear Uncle George leave with Brendon. I didn't really wake up until I felt something cold on my back. "I need to make you a sock for that stethoscope," I gasped. "You're going to freeze someone to death with it one of these days if I don't."

Pastor Ken gave a surprised chuckle and said, "Well, hello there bright eyes. I know someone that is going to be happy to see you're awake."

But first he asked me all sorts of typical questions like how many fingers was he holding up and how did I feel and did I hurt anywhere. He stuck his head out the door and said something I didn't catch and then Rand rushed into the room and over to the bed.

I was sitting up, leaning against the pillows trying to get a half formed apology passed my lips.

"No more Kiri, all I care about is that you're OK."

"I've made a mess of things haven't I?"

Pastor Ken stepped back into the room and said, "Kiri, I'd rather you not get upset, especially by worrying this to death. What happened was unfortunate, but God forgive me, it would have been more unfortunate had it been Rand on that ground instead of Harris. And as many folks as I have talked to today, that is the general consensus of everyone."

"How? How can they just say it's OK? It's … I … "

"Kiri! That's better, focus on my voice young lady. No one is saying that what happened is OK. But of all the scenarios that were most likely to play out, this was the least destructive for all concerned. Now I really don't want to give you another sedative seeing how you reacted to the first one, but you need to stay calm. Rand, give me a moment more to talk to Kiri."

"Well at least now I know who to thank for that blasted trip into the Twilight Zone," I sniped at Ken at the same time Rand asked, "Why? Is there something I should know?" He can be belligerent when he gets protective.

"Rand, I'll talk to you in a moment, just let me talk to Kiri first." Rand left the room but he wasn't very happy about it.

Getting worried I asked, "Is there something wrong? Did I do something to the baby?"

"I don't believe so, not this time, but we need to be realistic and I've got some orders that I doubt you'll be pleased with. You are on bed rest for another twenty-four hours until I make sure that your blood pressure is back under control. I didn't like your readings at all this morning and they've been fluctuating all afternoon. After that, you are on modified rest for a week."

"A week?! I can't … "

"Kiri you can and you will. Rand will explain it to you and I want you to listen with your brain and not just with your pig headedness. We'll see how it goes after that."

"Why? Is it the baby? But you said everything was OK."

"I said I _think_ everything is OK but I'm going to be frank since you seem to prefer that. You've had a series of severe shocks culminating in what I believe is an exaggerated delayed reaction this morning. In each instance you faced you did what you had to do but it still left an imprint on you. In other circumstances there would be no question but that you would be fine physically, but you are pregnant and you are going to have to start taking that into account in all you do. If you had a baby in your arms you would not have done some of the things you have done. From here on out I want you to start thinking like you do have a baby in your arms at all times, which physiologically is very close to your reality. Which brings me to my next point. Rand says that you target practice nearly every day. Is that true?"

"Yes. I used to be pretty bad now … now … I'm … I'm sorry. I … I wasn't bragging. Honest."

"I didn't think you were. There is nothing wrong with increasing your skills at something, especially something useful. And if you hadn't increased your skill level along the way there are several people that would no longer be walking this earth and I have a suspicion I might be one of them. But as to that I don't want you to be upset but I'm asking you to put your practicing on hold until after the baby is born."

"Why?!"

"Well, while there is some debate, it is generally considered good practice if women who are pregnant avoid firing weapons. There are auditory issues for both the mother and the fetus and there is some thought that breathing in the polluted air surrounding active weapons firing … the chemicals in the air like gun powder … is an unnecessary risk due to a pregnant woman's already burdened lung capacity and that some of the chemicals could cross the placental barrier."

"What about women in the military? Women who were police officers?"

"That's part of the debate. So are women who skeet shoot as a hobby on a regular basis or who like to hunt. From my standpoint, given that it isn't something that you absolutely have to do every day, I would like you to voluntarily refrain from the activity."

"What does Rand have to say?"

He snorted and asked, "What do you think he has to say? I could say you need to visit a Miami health resort and he'd already have started shutting down the house and piling the wagon to get you there."

Put in my place a bit I said, "Ok, so bed rest, then modified rest for a week, and no shooting."

"And … "

"There's more?! Isn't all that enough? I can guarantee you that I'm not going to start taking any pills so you can forget that no matter what Rand says."

"No, no pills, in fact the exact opposite. There are some things I want you to be watchful of and for." Then he went on to give me a list of signs or symptoms that could indicate something was wrong with the baby or with me. I have to say it all shook me up. It didn't even phase me when he said he didn't want me to take anything … not even a Tylenol … without asking him first. And he was consulting with Tia Cia about what types of herbal teas I would be allowed to drink; until he came up with a "safe" list I wasn't to have any at all. He'd spooked me, making me realize I wasn't me anymore. I mean I was me, it's that I wasn't only me anymore.

When he left the room I heard him tell Rand to sit down and they talked for a few minutes and then Rand walked him out to the porch. When Rand came back in I heard the squeak, squeak, squeak as he rolled down the front door shutter so I knew that it was late enough and that there wouldn't be any more visitors for the night.

I was thirsty and I was sitting up trying to pour water out of the pitcher on the nightstand when Rand walked in our room. "Here, let me get that."

"Rand … "

"Babe, just let me help. You are shaking and you're going to dump this all over yourself if you aren't careful."

He poured the water and gave me time to take a few sips to make sure it would stay down. "Kiri, we need to talk."

"I know. Ken's already laid down the law. I'm so sorry Rand. You've got all of your work and now mine too. I'm so …"

"Look at me. Let's get one thing clear and then have done with it. I'm … not … sorry. Harris meant to kill me. At the very least I would have been knifed in the back and hurt bad putting me down for who knows how long. I don't know what his damage was, and I'm sorry I couldn't protect you from … from any of it. But no matter what Kiri, I'm glad I'm still here to talk to you, to hold your hand, to just be with you. God has our last breath figured out for each of us, but when ever that time is for me … if you still need me, I'll fight to stay with you."

"Oh Rand. I don't mean to be so needy. I never was before. I don't know what is wrong with me!"

"Whoa now, Ken is going to scalp me if you get upset again. Look at me Babe. I don't think you're needy … or if you are it's because I need you to need me. And there isn't anything wrong with you. You're you, and that's what I want … and need … in my life. The rest of it we'll figure out together."

"Have I caused you problems? Cassie said … "

"You aren't causing me problems and what has that dang motor mouth said now?"

"Wait Rand! It wasn't like that at all. She was being nice. She explained things. About the Gilkins brothers and how what they were saying weren't the kind of things that could just be let to pass. And … "

"She had no business telling you … "

"She told me because I asked Rand. I can't process information if I don't have it in the first place."

"Still … "

"Still nothing, I'm never going to be the kind of girl that would rather not know things … at least I don't think I'm that type of girl. Maybe I'd be better off … "

"We aren't going there Kiri. I'm done with that subject. I like you … no, I love you … just the way you are. But … we are going to have to change the way we do a few things. We both are. You're right, I can't keep doing it all myself. I saw Uncle George try that and I'm not going there. Ken had an idea … look Kiri, I don't know how you're going to feel about this but it's the best solution we were able to come up with. There's a boy, he's ten years old or says he is. Pastor Ken found him wandering down a lane picking up acorns and eating them right after that first cold snap. He'd been living by himself in an abandoned hay barn behind Hookerman's creek. He doesn't talk much but he's an all right kid; I met him today at the swap meet. He's been staying with Momma O's family but they really don't have the room or the food for an extra mouth, not with Sadie pregnant now too. Maybe after spring harvest things will be better but the boy needs to go to a family that has the extra food right now. And I need the help."

"You mean Ken wants … you want … us to bring this boy here? To help with chores or … or to be part of the family? Which one?"

"I don't know Kiri, at least until after the baby is born for sure. I know I need the help. No one knows much about where he came from, he won't talk about it, but there haven't been any chores that he's been set that he hasn't been able to do. He knows his way around animals and Momma O said he helped set rows out in their garden and knew the difference between a weed and a seedling when he helped Paul hoe some of the rows. He's not a local but if I had to guess he's lived on a farm before."

"I'm not saying no Rand but why us, why not Mr. Henderson or one of the families that work for him? I know there are people that are better off than folks know we are."

"They have taken in kids at the ranch. In fact they've got so many they almost don't have the adults to give them the attention they need. Other people already have kids and bringing in another one … not everyone is cut out to look after other people's kids. Uncle George kept thinking about taking in the boy because they already have Mick and Tommy but there's space problems at their place already and soon there will be two babies under the one roof and another one under the other. Mrs. Withrow mentioned that you were already used to a house full of boys of all ages and Momma O pointed out how well you handled Mick, Tommy, and some of the other boys during church; they never seem to irritate you or make you lose your cool the way they get to some folks."

"All right. Fine. But Rand, what does the boy want?"

"Huh?"

"Has anyone bothered to ask the boy what he wanted?"

"Uh, I … I don't know."

"Someone better ask him. I saw what happened to boys that were pulled from pillar to post in foster care. If they didn't feel like they had any control in their life they'd find something else to try and control." I gave it some thought but it just felt right for some reason. "I guess if the boy isn't going to feel like he's being kidnapped for slave labor … I guess OK. But we don't make any promises to him we can't keep. It's not fair for anyone involved. Him holding us to promises we'll never be able to fulfill and us expecting him to wait around forever for us to fulfill promises we're not even sure we should have made in the first place."

"I can live with that. Ken said he would talk to him tomorrow and if everything works out they'll bring him by on Monday." After a minute Rand asked, "You weren't just talking about the boy were you. Did anyone ever ask what you wanted? Growing up I mean. Did they ever ask you?"

"No. It's no big deal now. Then yeah … yeah then it was a huge deal and I resented it like crazy. There's nothing worse than having absolutely no say over your life when you don't know whether you can trust the people that are telling you what your life is going to be day in and day out. It's about like I imagine being in prison would be like. It might have been a gilded cage but it was still a locked cage."

"I'm sorry Babe."

"Don't be, it wasn't your doing. I'd go through it all again if I could be sure … absolutely positively sure … that I'd still wind up here, with you."

"Aw Babe."

"That's what's so hard. Having made it through all of that … that mess my life used to be … to get here … and then the idea of losing it. And the worst thing? The worst thing is knowing that no matter what I do … it could happen in a blink of an eye. Because there are no promises in this life made by man that can't be broken. None. In the end it's all between us and God and even when we don't understand it we just have to take it. No matter how bad it is. Because in the end, we aren't the ones in control."

"We have choices. God created us with free will."

"Yeah, all of us. So even if I chose to do all the right things, some goofy kid could decide to have a drink, just a small one but big enough to make him act just a little stupid. And his little stupid leaks over on top of my doing everything right … and soon enough you're riding along in a car and because of his little bit of stupid your whole life changes and you lose everyone you love, that loves you."

"Kiri, Babe … "

"I'm all right Rand, I just … sometimes it all seems like too much. I have to be responsible for myself and at the same time I have to accept when other people's choices impact my life. Sometimes I'd really rather not have anything to do with other human beings."

"You think I was being irresponsible, getting in a fight with … "

"No! No, that's not what I meant. I know guys have these ultimate taboo things. Just … just forget it Rand, I'm in a funky mood. You know me … weird, moody, and … "

"Kiri, no more. Look at me. Whatever is going on, we'll figure it out. Together."

"Forever right?"

"As forever as I have a choice about."

I sighed, finally willing to let go of whatever awful mood had swallowed me up. "Then I guess … I guess that will have to be enough."

It was really late by then and even though I hadn't eaten since breakfast I couldn't drink the broth Rand wanted me to; eventually it was just easier for both of us if I went back to sleep. He wasn't far behind me because I felt him slide between the sheets and eventually we wound up tangled together like we usually do except without the other stuff because Ken had said none of that for a while either.

This morning I felt sluggish, like I was walking through molasses when I got up from the bed to go to the bathroom and clean myself up. I heaved a bit but Rand had toast ready for me when I walked out of the bathroom. It was on a TV tray and there was even a fake flower in a bottle on it. "Sorry, no real flowers. The camellias are blooming but I didn't notice until I was already bringing the tray."

I smiled but it was only skin deep. He kept trying to tease me saying things like if I get crumbs in the bed he's sleeping on the sofa and that sort of thing. I tried, I really tried but I just couldn't shake my mood. Too many things were crowding my ears wanting to be heard and I didn't want to listen to any of it.

I know there was a church service today. I know it sounded like some people came by and stopped out in the yard but Rand didn't bring any of them inside. He'd come inside to check on me and I'd be dreading him saying someone wanted to see me but then he'd just say so-and-so came by asking how I was. I know it's perverse but I'd then feel bad because they'd come by just to ask and not to see for themselves.

I was slowly sliding into a vegetative state, trying not to complain about being bored when Rand himself was so busy, when the next time he came in he brought the little portable desk that had come from Mrs. Withrow and my journal and pen set. "Sorry I didn't think of this sooner. You should have asked. You're probably going nuts being forced to stay in here all by yourself. I hope the people coming by haven't bothered you. Some wanted to step in and say hello but you're still in your nightclothes and I know how you are about that."

Gosh, I nearly kicked myself for being so stupid. Of course Rand was just trying to protect me and give me the space I normally crave. It got worse when he said, "Just about everyone who has stopped by has brought something. There's several pans of cornbread and pots of beans and some stews in there when you get hungry. Momma O and Mrs. Withrow organized it. I wished you'd let me go ahead and fix you a plate to eat now, you haven't really had a full meal since breakfast yesterday."

People are funny. Here I was scared to death that I had managed to totally wreck all we've worked so hard to build, wrecked the future that I had started putting some confidence into again, and it seems like it is the exact opposite. People are still willing to give what little they have to show they care. It gave me something to chew on besides self pity until Pastor Ken arrived.

"Feeling better?"

I nodded. "Getting there. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"None of these people … I mean the people that dropped the food off … none of them … they're not hurting because they sent some food here are they?"

He smiled. "I don't think so. The ladies of the church are very careful not to ask any more from families than what they can give. And as far as I know those that did bring something did so voluntarily and not just because they were asked. There were so many that wanted to come by that Mrs. Withrow had to remind them you'd had a bad shock and were on bed rest."

"You're not just saying that so I won't have a melt down or anything are you?"

"No. I wouldn't lie to you."

"Well, I didn't mean lie, just kind of soft coat it."

He chuckled and said, "No. Not even that. Kiri I'm telling you that people aren't holding what happened against you. There are a few that don't know what to make of it being a female who did it but usually when they open their mouths about that there is some woman nearby that is more than willing to enlighten them." He changed the subject but I let him when he said, "Your blood pressure is much better today. If it is this good when I come by this evening then I'll say you can get up in the morning but no lifting, no climbing the stairs, no milking or any other chore like that for a few days yet. I want you to sit, keep your feet up and continue to drink plenty of water. Maybe sewing or even folding laundry would be OK, but no washing. No standing at the sink. Nothing that keeps you standing at all or lugging anything heavier that a stack of shirts or towels. We don't want to undo all the good that has come from your day of rest."

It was after Ken left that I decided to get my thoughts in order and do more than doodle in my journal. I need a plan or I'm gonna go nuts and get cranky even if I know I'm doing the whole invalid thing for the baby's sake. And not just plan for that either. Tomorrow Rand and I are going to be foster parents which is a totally weird idea for me and I'm not sure how I feel about that. It can't be any worse than what I lived with at Aunt Wilma's but if we are going to do this I want to do it right. The boy is going to need stuff I'm sure and he is going to need a space to call his own which means getting the house rearranged. I'm not having him sleep on the sofa when there are perfectly acceptable beds under all those boxes and bags we have stored on them. And an education. Don't we owe him some type of education?

Pastor Ken came back by late in the afternoon and my blood pressure is still good so I'm outta bed tomorrow. And the boy will be here starting tomorrow. Rand moved some stuff out of the dormer room and into our closet so we wouldn't have to go up there for a few days, at least until we decide whether the boy is staying permanently or not.

After a dinner of cornbread and pinto beans I finally got around to asking Rand about a few things that I'd heard.

"Rand?"

"Mmm?"

"What did Cassie mean when she said that Mr. Henderson was sending the rest of the Gilkins brothers to work off what they owe him?"

"She said that huh? Mitch better talk to that girl." Then he looked at me like he was measuring what kind of mood I was in. "There's no law enforcement any more Kiri. There's really no law period. When people become nuisances in the community they get … talked to. Usually things get worked out or they get … shut out. Shut out of business deals, shut out of social events, that sort of thing. The word goes out on what they did and most people use what amounts to peer pressure on them. If they straighten up and stop causing problems then everything goes back to normal and no one holds it against them. Whatever happened is done and over with, no harm no foul. But it doesn't always work out that way. A lot of people that get shut out and who don't want to … "conform to community standards" as Mr. Henderson calls it usually wind up moving, maybe closer to Lake City or even further out in the country where how they want to live their lives doesn't affect anybody."

"But that isn't what Cassie said. She said he was sending those men some place."

"That's only happened a couple of times. Henderson had a couple of families that started wanting to change how things were run on the ranch. They wanted a democracy or at least a say in how things were run. Mr. Henderson brought everyone into the ranch letting them know up front it was his way or the highway. They kept at it and it was causing no small amount of problems. One night Henderson and some of his top men went in and moved the families lock stock and barrel to a relocation facility down in Alachua; just dropped 'em off and left 'em there. They kept what was theirs to keep and then were given the freedom to make their own way from that point forward."

"How come I never heard of this?"

"It happened right after that trouble at Itchetucknee. I didn't hear about it until a couple of weeks later myself."

"So is that where he's sending the Gilkins?"

"No. There's a … a sorta work camp in Steinhatchee, along the river. The military is providing security but the locals run it. Henderson has some connections down there. Supplies are brought up the river and then off loaded on 51 right there at Mayo and can either be brought overland via 51 into Live Oak or can be transported on the Suwannee picking up and trading out supplies the long way around, through all the small communities, and still wind up in Live Oak. Right now the biggest problem is pirates. The Navy covers the Gulf and the Coast Guard has the shoreline but they can't be everywhere, especially up and down every river, creek, and tributary. That's being left to local management. There's are groups of families operating docks along the rivers and they use as much or as little force as they feel necessary … and they make a decent living keeping the inland river ways clear."

"And Ram is involved in this how?"

"No clue Babe. I get to watch when you ask him though. He makes some pretty funny noises when you get him backed into a corner. Reminds me of a chicken I once had. And he dances around an answer really pretty too."

"Oh you. It's not funny."

"Wellll, it may not have been funny, but at least I got you to give me a real smile."

I had started to feel more myself by then, or at least I was in more control of what other people were seeing. I still don't understand why things have to happen the way they do. Life is so confusing. Why am I only seventeen yet I have more in common with old widow ladies than I do with girls my own age? How do I teach my baby how to protect themselves from the world but not teach them to protect themselves so well that they miss out on the good things that do occasionally come along?

All I do know for is that I'm grateful and blessed that Rand wasn't killed. I'm not grateful and sure as heck don't feel blessed though that I had to do the killing. I don't know how to reconcile it all. How do I stand before God and say I killed a man because I didn't want him to kill a man. One of these days I'm going to have to get my head around it all but for now I think I'm ready to just … what was it the Mrs. Withrow said the other day … something about sometimes the only thing we can do is leave it at the foot of the Cross and walk away. Yeah, that sounds like exactly what I need, someone to take it off my shoulders, at least for a while. I'm tired of carrying all of these feelings and hurt around. They are getting too heavy and too complicated.


	77. Chapter 76

Chapter 76

 **January 22** **nd** – It was barely daylight but Rand and I had already eaten breakfast, using up some of the food that had been brought yesterday. These were meat pie kind of things and they weren't bad. I'm going to try and make some when I'm allowed up and around for more than two seconds at a time. For the moment I find myself parked on the sofa in the big room more than anything else.

Rand would have lit the fireplace but I told him not to bother. It was getting warmer during the day and if I got cold I could throw a quilt or blanket over my lap. A fire would have been nice but the truth was that the firewood level was getting low last week and though Rand cut some yesterday he hadn't had time to cut much and he was suppose to work the whole week for Mr. Henderson. Rand had just come in with a small pail of milk to put in the water cooler pan when Pastor Ken drove up with the boy.

Rand stepped outside and it wasn't a minute before I heard Ken driving away. Rand walked in with a boy – our boy – and with a very serious look on his face said, "Ken will be by later. One of Henderson's men came by to get tell him that a man out at the Harbinger's was gored by a bull."

"Did he say who it was?"

"I didn't have time to ask. Which room did you want to use?" Rand asked pointing to a paper sack the boy had a death grip on.

The boy's name is Austin and he stands out from us like the fabled red headed step child … literally. Austin is tall for a ten year old, about the same size as Mick who has finally started to put on a few inches of height. He's built lean and lanky and I can't imagine what he is going to be when he really does get to that stage of lean and lanky that boys go through before they start filling out; he's likely going to look like a stork poor thing. And when I say red headed I mean it; he's got wild strawberry blonde hair that wouldn't behave with a whole tube of gel worked into it. He's eyes are soft brown and have the same look as a pup that's been kicked around too much. He's not been ruined but I didn't know quite how to take it when Rand said he's nearly as cautious as I am.

Rather than answer Rand directly I asked Austin if he minded picking one out and letting me know. I told him he had a choice of three rooms but they were all messy right now but that we would get things straightened up better as soon as I was allowed to be on my feet.

I got a squinty-eyed look like he was trying to measure if this was a trick or not. Rand showed him the three rooms and then he came back over to where I was sitting. "The one looks like it has a bunch of baby stuff in it already so it'd be kinda stupid for me to go in there. The one next to it is OK."

"OK, that's fine. Rand has to go to work for Mr. Henderson, have you met him?"

"Yes 'um"

"Um … could we like not do the yes ma'am, no ma'am thing for a little bit? I'm not used to it."

"Yes 'um … I mean OK."

"Cool deal. Rand do you have anything for Austin to do?"

"Well, I didn't mean to put him to work so fast, he hasn't even had time to unpack. But, I'd appreciate some help getting the animals taken care of so I can go."

When they were done Rand came back in and said, "Austin knows what to do with the animals as well as Mick does. Hatchet even behaved for him which is a relief. Babe, I have got to get out of here if I want to get that front part finished and be home in time for a daylight supper. Are you sure you're OK?"

I knew Rand was asking me not only was I OK physically but if I was OK with being left with the boy. I was and told him so. Rand left and that left Austin and I basically just looking at each other.

"Let me guess, he asked you to babysit me." I said in my most matter of fact voice.

Austin eyed me suspicious and said, "Kinda I guess."

"Well I don't need babysitting."

"He said you'd say that."

"Figures. Look, I expect this is as weird for you as it is for us. Rand and I … well, the whole baby thing is pretty new to us and now there's you. I'm not used to sitting around doing nothing and it is already driving me crazy. I can be moody and weird at the best of times …"

"He said you'd say that too, but when you said it I was to tell you he'd already warned me and not to say it again.

"Well of all the … " I said acting pretty affronted.

That got a very small, second-long smile out of Austin. "Look. Rand and I just have things that we've agreed to disagree about but, we both agreed that if you wanted to come live with us and help out that we'd like that."

"You can't like having me here."

"Excuse me?"

"You can't like having me here. I'm another mouth to feed and you're gonna have a baby."

"So?"

"I'm not stupid."

"I didn't say you were. As a matter of fact I hope you're not."

"Well I'm not. I hear what people say. You only need help for a little while."

"Well see, that's the thing. If you stay I might get used to you staying as long as we don't brangle like cats and dogs. Even then it might be OK. I've got a foster brother that I used to brangle with pretty regular but now that we are older it's not as bad as it used to be. He grew out of being a brat."

I could see him mashing his lips together trying real hard not to say something sassy. I knew right then that the kid could be OK if we could figure out some way to get through the initial awkwardness, same way I always seemed to know which of the foster boys were going to be good 'uns or which were likely to be bad 'uns. Well, not always I suppose; I did make a couple of mistakes I lived to regret.

"Look, like I said, this is weird for all of us but Rand is a really good guy and he puts up with a lot of stuff that made other people I know go running for the hills rather than deal with me. I'm better than I used to be and we get along really good … well, except maybe when either one of us wants our own way too much but mostly we compromise fine and you won't have to listen to a lot of fussing and fighting from us.' The conversation pretty much died after that. If I had been up and busy it might have been easier but I was as stuck as he was.

It didn't take Austin long to get the fidgets. It's only natural, I've yet to meet a boy that didn't and it made it worse that we were both nervous and growing bored. I decided a change of scenery might help so I told him if he would carry the foot stool onto the front porch I'd introduce him to Woofer and Fraidy. The foot stool was to keep me out of hot water with Rand and Ken for being someplace besides the sofa. That little dickens grabbed the foot stool and the rifle off the rack we have by the door. I suspect that Rand or someone had already schooled him or given him directions of what to do.

"Austin can you shoot?" I didn't know if Rand had already asked him or not but it at least gave me something to talk about.

It took him a while to answer, "My Peepaw taught me but I don't shoot as good as you. I had my own rifle only … "

"Only?" When he didn't answer and still had that far away look in his eyes I said, "If you want, I'll talk to Rand and maybe you can take my place during our practice time."

He gave me a suspicious look, "Why would he do that?"

"Who do you think taught me? Besides if you're gonna live here and work with Rand you're probably going to need to know. So do you want me to or not?" He shrugged like he didn't care one way or the other but I could see him watching out of the corner of his eye. Hook number one.

I whistled for hook number two and it sounded like a small horse as it came barreling out of the woods on the other side of the garden heading straight for us. I don't know which of them was funnier, Woofer who caught sight of the boy and tried to quick stop only to hit a pile of damp leaves, or Austin who watched this oversized dog barrel rolling into him with eyes so wide they were nearly falling out of his head. They both went "Oof!" when Austin had his feet knocked out from under him.

Woofer got to his feet quicker than Austin and ran up onto the porch and behind the rocker with his tail tucked like he knew he was in trouble for knocking a small person down.

"That's the dog … the one from the swap meet. He tore a hole in the seat of Mr. Belcher's pants."

"Then Mr. Belcher must have been threatening Rand in some way."

"Will he bite me?"

"Mr. Belcher or Woofer?"

He gave me the same look I would have given someone if they had tried to make that joke. "Yeah, pretty lame. Look, Woofer is cool, just protective. If he considers you his you're pretty much stuck with him for life. Come over here and stand there. Now let him decide you're no threat. Give me your hand …. "

In no time at all Woofer figured out that Austin was going to be the next best thing to having another dog for a playmate, especially when he discovered that Austin was as tireless as he was when it came to fetch.

They both took a break to get something to drink and Austin asks, "It's really all right if I play with him? I'm not going to get in trouble for not doing chores or something?"

"You'll have chores but Rand figured to give you a day or two to see if you want to stay and then … "

I didn't even get a chance to finish, "I want to!"

"Huh?"

"I … I want to stay."

"It won't all be playing with Woofer you know. Work can get pretty thick around here."

"That's OK. Peepaw always said I was good worker." Then Austin looked at me. "I don't have no place else. Charlie didn't want me. He gave me to them people that were collecting orphans and kids nobody wanted."

"What people?" I asked.

"I ain't seen none around here. They wore blue helmets and they used to get in fights with the guys in green helmets. They used to fight real bad and then some old guy in a green helmet and a bunch of other guys in green helmets came and made the guys in the blue helmets lay down all of their guns and get in this big boat."

"What happened to them?"

"I don't know. The guys in the green helmets put us kids on a train."

"A train? How did you get off the train?" I asked trying to get the story out of him without trying to force so much out at one time he would lock up on me.

"After we'd ridden on the train for a little while they took us off and then we walked to this big school. The big kids called it the tri-county highschool. I didn't like it there. The big kids beat up on the younger kids and we had to do what they said, even if it was bad stuff."

"Where were the adults?"

"Taking care of the babies and real little kids and working in the hospital tents."

I haven't got his entire story yet. For instance he won't talk much about "Charlie" or "Peepaw" but when Ken came around at lunch time to check on me and saw Austin and Woofer off in the woods playing tag he said, "That's the most relaxed I've ever seen that boy. Momma O was right, you've got the touch."

"Yeah right. I've just been around enough boys to know that expecting them to act like girls is stupid. I never did mind the little guys, it's when they got older that some of them turned into jerks."

"Hmmmm," Ken answered by way of agreement I think. My blood pressure is still good and Ken said if it stays that way through this coming Sunday what happened at the swap meet could have been a one off and if I use common sense from here on out he won't restrict my activities beyond what being pregnant will anyway.

I asked him if it had been Ron Harbinger gored this morning. "No. A stranger, no one recognizes him. He could have been passing through. He obviously doesn't know much about farm animals. No one with any would have gone inside a fenced off bull like that just to cross a field when you can go around and avoid trouble. He didn't have any ID on him. Did what I could to get a good description of him, cut a lock of hair and a piece of his shirt and I'll keep it on file."

"You mean?"

"The man was dead before I could get there. The horn punctured a lung. Brutal way to go and the guy already looked like he'd had a rough row to hoe. He was malnourished and had a bad color to him. I've already been to the compound and left a note for the Major's staff in case someone heads there looking for him."

"You … um … report to the military?"

"No, not in the way you mean. There is a courtesy exchange of information but otherwise we are left to operate independently. We don't get interference but that also means that we don't get help, at least not for the local stuff. If it was road pirates or something like the VRC … whoa, you got a little pale there."

"Is the VRC still around?"

"Not in large numbers but I have a report that says they are intermittently working with the pirates along the coast and along some rivers. Well, I've got to go. Kiri, I know this isn't easy for you but thank you for trying to listen to me without getting all bent out of shape."

"Pastor, I'm trying … just one thing please."

"What?"

"Don't ever drug me without asking me first again. I've got … a grudge against that sort of thing. Once upon a time I wasn't given a choice about anything like that. All those things I told you about. I know you were only doing what you thought was good doctoring but it wasn't good for my head. If there is a next time, at least make the effort to talk to me first."

I'm not sure how Ken took having a young chick talk to him like that but I was trying to be polite about it. He gave me a look but nodded and I guess I'll just have to hold him to his word. It wasn't long after that that Austin and Woofer both came looking for scraps to eat. I got up and went to the kitchen to fix something and both of them followed me in. "The Pastor says you ain't supposed to be up and around. Rand said so too."

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Yes 'um but …"

"Oh fine. At least we'll be able to tell Rand that you are a good babysitter."

He looked at me a moment until he figured out I was joking. "I know how to heat stuff up. Peepaw taught me before … "

I was losing him again so I said, "Well that's fair enough. What do you want? Beans, or there's beans, or we could have a little beans. Then there's a choice or cornbread or cornbread. What'll it be?"

It took him a second but he gave me a small smile. "I think I'll have beans and cornbread please. What can Woofer have?"

I looked out the window to see Fraidy stalking a couple of squirrels. "Look boy. Go help Fraidy get the squirrels. Go on, go help Fraidy."

If you've never watched a dog and cat hunt together like a pack you've really missed something. When Fraidy saw Woofer come out into the yard and plop down, she skirted the squirrels and then climbed the other side of the tree and get up in a limb and wait like a panther. Once she's up there it only takes a minute before Woofer does the chase-but-not-catch thing they've worked out. He runs the squirrels up the tree where Fraidy lies in wait. She'll either catch one or stun it and knock it out of the tree where Woofer is waiting to pick it up and shake it to its demise. I've seen them do the same thing to rabbits and I suspect they've done it to field mice and moles. Watching wasn't doing much good for my digestion though it was fascinating Austin. That's when I boo-booed.

I made a sharp turn to the right and had to grab ahold of the counter to keep from going down. I scared poor Austin to death and he was halfway out the door before I could draw breath enough to call him back in and tell him it was all right.

"Really, I'm all right. If I turn too fast I pull something out of whack."

"Is it the rhumatiz? Peepaw had the rhumatiz and some days his back was awful bad."

"No. I hope you weren't telling stories about being able to heat stuff up. I think I better sit back down for a while." As soon as I got comfortable I told him, "I was in a really bad car accident. A … a drunk driver … killed my family. Nearly killed me too and … well, I've got scars on the outside and on the inside. Sometimes the ones on the inside want to give me trouble."

"Oh."

"I hope that doesn't freak you out too much."

He looked at me like he was weighing me or something. "No. I … I had to go live with my … my dad … my mom wasn't so good at taking care of me. After … um … some stuff happened … my mom and dad didn't live together and mom had boyfriends. One of them … he hurt me and that's when I went to go live with my dad."

I wasn't sure what that had to do with things until he sat down, looked at me again and then sat down on a chair and pulled up a pant leg and pulled down a sock. "The guy was supposed to be giving me a bath cause the social worker was coming. Dad said the guy was messed up and was one of mom's weird echo-terrorist people she hung out with. I still don't know what an echo-terrorist is."

"Echo-terrorists … oh, wait, I think you mean eco-terrorists. It's somebody that is more fond of plants and animals than they are of humans and they want to make a bunch of rules that humans have to live by so they won't hurt the earth and stuff like that. Only, instead of letting cops and stuff give people tickets and take them to court if they break the rules, they did things like bomb buildings, break into computers, steal animals, run into other boats and sabotage things … totally radical and mean stuff like that."

"Yeah, that sounds like some of mom's friends. I don't even know where she is any more. When the flu came she told my dad it was like Gaia's revenge and wanted to take me and go live on some tropical island. Dad said no, mom said it was his loss and left and we didn't hear from her ever again." He sighed and put some beans in a small pot and put them on the stove and sure enough he knew how to heat them up without any instructions at all. Call me impressed.

"I guess I better do this now since pretty soon I doubt I'll even be able to see my shoes much less reach them." He turned around and looked at me. I can't believe I did it. Rand is the only other person I sorta willingly have shown my scars to. I reached down and pulled up my own pant leg and pulled down my psychedelic sock and showed him my scars."

"You really do have scars. You weren't just saying it."

"Nope."

"The car wreck did all that?"

"The car wreck and then the doctors trying to fix what the car wreck broke."

There is nothing quite like a good sized scar to impress a boy. After that is when I think he really started to relax. During lunch I finally heard his story from the beginning.

There's Peepaw who was Charles Barker. There is Austin's father who was called C.J. Barker which was short for Charles Jr. and then Charlie Barker is Austin's oldest half-brother. There were three other brothers but they don't have much to do with the overall story because they died during the flu. From what I gathered Austin's father married young and well and they lived a happily ever after life until the day that his first wife never woke up from a nap she took to get rid of her headache. The headache was actually an aneurism. C.J. Barker was a man possessed after that and was just about a 180 degree different person to what he had been before. He started running around the bars where he met a pretty young thing and they were married two weeks later.

Same old soap opera. They both regretted it almost immediately but she caught pregnant and they tried to work it out anyway. She left before Austin was even born and it would have all been swept under the rug except CJ had come to himself and wanted to help raise Austin … which didn't go over well at all considering the difference in what they wanted to teach the boy. One of the things that Paris … that was Austin's mother's name … put on the divorce papers was "cruelty to animals."

"Let me guess. Your Peepaw's farm was a working farm. You slaughtered animals as well as vegetables."

"Yeah. Eventually the judge told mom that if she didn't want to lose custody of me she had to knock it off and put a reign on her friends who had caused some fires on the farm. But I was too little then and I don't remember it. After I got burned I went to go live with Peepaw and only saw mom every other weekend and a couple of weeks during the summer if she remembered. She was away a lot with her friends protesting and stuff like that."

Man, I thought I had a messed up life after my family was killed. As messed up as Aunt Wilma could be at least she was still a sane kind of messed up. Maybe I haven't given her enough credit.

Then the flu came along. Austin's three brothers went real quick during the third wave leaving Austin's dad really messed up again. His grandfather, always the most stable influence in his life, completely took over raising him … and protecting him. Seems Austin was a poor little Cinderfella only in reverse. He was considered the interloper and was frozen out by his four much older brothers who took a lot of delight in making his life as miserable as they could without getting into trouble themselves. Then the tragic fourth wave of the pandemic hit and Austin's father died and while it didn't kill his grandfather it left him disabled.

Charlie became the head of the house by default and when Charles Barker finally died of heart failure a couple of months later Austin's life went from bad to worse. Charlie had kids of his own and didn't want to have anything to do with raising Austin so he shuttled him out, the rest I've already written.

After lunch Woofer was more interested in a nap but did follow Austin around while he picked up the fallen limbs around the yard and broke them into lengths for the tinder box. He also refilled the wood box, gathered the few eggs that the hens weren't setting, and brushed out Hatchet who seemed to take to the boy a whole lot better than he had ever taken to me.

I didn't mean to but I dozed in the rocker on the front porch and then jumped awake when I realized that I was actually asleep and not just relaxing. Austin was sitting on the porch picking burrs out of Woofer's tail.

"Not again. That dog finds more of those prickle bushes to get into than anything I've ever seen."

"The rabbits go in there and hide and he prolly likes how they smell."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Peepaw used to show me how the swamp rabbits would make their nests above ground instead of in hutches. Birds and stuff get in there too. He likes to smell everything." Woofer agreed to this by sticking his nose in Austin's ear and making him duck and laugh. "How come he don't have no fleas?"

"Woofer? I give him a bath in no-flea shampoo. I'll have to figure out what to do when that runs out but I've got a ton of it."

"Does the cat have fleas?"

"No, I have collars for her."

"Oh." After a second he looked at me again. "How come the box the milk goes in is so cold?"

Rand and I knew this was coming but I hadn't thought it would get here so quick. "Yeah, about that. Listen, Rand and I sorta … there's things we … look, if you could not mention that to anyone else that would be good. We've worked really hard not to be show-offs and for other reasons too. It would just be better … "

"Like a secret only not a secret that hurts other people."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah."

"OK," he said the same way someone else would have said, "whatever works." I hope it stays that simple because if he keeps living with us our other secrets are going to come out.

Rand just managed to get in before dark to have more beans and cornbread with us. Austin went out to the barn to help him with the night chores and I was left twiddling my thumbs on the sofa after I turned on the solar lamp.

"Wow … cool!" was Austin's response when he saw the lamp. He was mesmerized almost. "Hey, look what I found when I was going through this shed." He ran out of the room nearly running into the wall before coming back in with a wind up flashlight. "You showed me your secret and this one is mine."

Rand looked at me and mouthed, "Secret?"

Austin clued Rand in before I had to. "Rand, that thing you put the milk in is really neat. Kiri said that you'd show me how it works and I could help take care of it and stuff."

"Oh, she did? Sure buddy. You like seeing how things work?"

"Peepaw … he used … to … " and just like that Austin was gone away again.

Rand clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Why don't you tell me what you did today."

"Huh? Oh, you … you didn't leave a chore list." Both Rand and I could see he was getting worried, scared, defensive or maybe it was all three.

"Well no. I figured you'd need a day or two to get settled. If you are bored to death and just dying to work I'll leave you a list tomorrow."

Austin looked at Rand like he was a little on the crazy side but just shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, there is one thing, my uncle is coming over with Mick and Tommy for a couple of hours and I thought the three of you could walk the fence line for me and let me know if anything needed fixing."

Ahhhh, that put a little light in Austin's eyes. He already knew Mick and Tommy from the church services and from the swap meet. Mick may have been three years older and Tommy two but when friends are few and far between age makes less of a difference and both boys would have taken Austin in just because that's the way they are.

I was tired from sitting around doing nothing and Rand was exhausted. I felt bad but he went into the room Austin had picked and helped him move some stuff around and off the bunk bed that is in there. I brought them some clean sheets for the mattress and was summarily ejected and told to go sit back down. I heard him tell Austin that we'd get the other stuff moved out so he could have some room to move. I've been using the bedrooms like storage rooms and knew that eventually I'd have to find another way of doing things. Now though I'm going to have to clean two rooms instead of just one for the baby which is really going to squish things up in my other storage areas.

Austin had had a full day and was nodding off just about as soon as his bed was cleared off. I made him go clean up in the kitchen because I hadn't gotten a pitcher of water and towels put in the hallway bath yet. We gave him some privacy and when he came out I noticed all he had to sleep in was a t-shirt and a raggedy pair of shorts that would have been too small for him if he weren't still so skinny from trying to survive on his own. Tomorrow, I don't care what anyone says there is no way anyone that I'm supposed to be taking care of is going to go around like that; I'm going to do something about it. And his day clothes too. He can't be toting much in that paper sack.

Rand saw me getting up and put his hand on my shoulder to push me back down. He went to the blanket chest and pulled out another blanket and took it into the room and when he came out he said, "He's three-quarters to sleep already and nine will get you ten that Woofer is in the bed with him before the night is over."

When I didn't respond he asked, "Does that bother you?"

"Huh? Oh, no, not if he isn't dirty and Austin picked all the prickle burrs out of his fur this afternoon. I was thinking about some stuff that Austin told me," and I went on to tell Rand about the blue helmets and the green helmets. "I don't know who the blue helmets were. The VRC … they wore black or red berets."

"Are you sure he said blue helmets?"

"Yeah. The green helmets … the military? The blue helmets … cops maybe?"

"No. Not if what I'm thinking proves out."

When he didn't say anything more I went "Well?"

"Huh? Oh … sorry about zoning out. Look, I can tell you what I think but that doesn't make it what really happened. I'll have to ask Bill or maybe Henderson."

"And … the rest of the story is … ?"

He chuckled, "Don't be so impatient, I'm trying to get my thoughts straight. It seems a little out there but maybe not as much as being invaded by China and the VRC and we know that stuff happened or that they tried to. The only blue helmets I know besides sports helmets are worn by UN troops. It is possible that we have or had a … well a kind of battle going on over our country. We've got a lot of natural resources. We've got a lot of land compared to most countries. People have viewed us with envy for a long time. If … and this is a big if … some countries looked at the US and then looked at the rest of the world and all the turmoil that is going on and then used that 'equitable distribution' crap that some in our own government were supporting … well the UN could have invited themselves onto our soil and tried to take over in the guise of humanitarian aid."

"Invited themselves? How does that work?"

"Or they were invited by some politicians. Who knows? To be honest this is nothing but something that barely qualifies as a theory right now but it might not be just the VRC that is causing those communication blackouts we've been noticing."

"I thought things would have been too messed up all over the world for something like that to happen."

"Babe, things are never too messed up for some people to try and take advantage of a situation. The last few leaders of the UN weren't what I would call US-friendly. They always thought our country deserved to have a heavier financial burden to support their agenda while having a smaller say in the agenda itself. That has to be one of the most useless organizations that was ever allowed to come into being. Talk about good intentions going bad."

Rand knows a lot more stuff about all of that than I do … that political stuff. People used to try and shove so much of that stuff down my throat – at school, at Aunt Wilma's, even at the diner – that I tuned it out. Rand is shocked at how ignorant I am. He said he thought I would have really latched onto it because of my debate skills, the classes I was taking in school, and because my Dad was in the military. I told him I could debate it with the best of them if need be but I got tired of too much of it, it was like total overload. I wish now I'd paid more attention but I didn't and I can't change the way things were. And from here on out so long as they leave me alone that's about all I have time to care about. Of course, the way things are it doesn't sound seem like we are going to be left alone.

 **January 23** **rd** – Rand was gone sun up to sundown again today. He's going at it as long as the mules can stand it, trying to shave a day off how long it is going to take to plow Henderson's field. The biggest hold up is the pieces of limestone that keep coming up. Rand says he's never seen anything like it. I figure what happened is that some of the early settlers found one place to toss all the limestone they found out of their fields or maybe that's a knob of limestone like what is over at the concrete plant they have down in Gilchrist county. There's limestone around a lot of the springs in the area so any story is as good as the next.

Rand is taking Austin with him tomorrow and Austin is going to hold the mules while Rand loads some of the limestone into the wagon. They'll bring the stones back and Rand wants to line the side of the gully next to the road with it as we've had some of it washing away the last couple of rains.

When I complained he was going to take away some of my best blackberry bushes he said that the bushes would come up through the stones more than likely and even if they didn't having a secure road bed there was more important.

"Babe, the gully has a clay pan bottom. It's going to hold water except during the driest spells. The higher the water the more it is leaching into the base of the road. Sure the gully is seven or eight feet deep but all we need is for the base to get eroded enough and then you'll have a slide that takes out the whole lane and that will be a lot of work if I have to fix that by hand. As it is we're already losing some of the road base where our road meets the county road. I need to figure out why and get it fixed before it gets any worse." The list of things we need to do is getting to be as long as the list of things we want to do.

Austin seems to be settling in. I think he got so used to being pulled from pillar to post that he just learned to be flexible. Guess we'll see how long that lasts.

Uncle George came by and brought the rest of the stuff from Mrs. Withrow. "Got tired of listening to her sigh over the fact that if she could just get this stuff over to you all she'd be finished cleaning out the house and she could turn it over to Josiah with a clear conscience. Austin, come help the boys unload this stuff. We'll put it up on the porch and cover with a tarp until Kiri is up to going through it."

After the boys unloaded the wagon, no small chore, they went tearing off to walk the fence. Woofer was in doggy Heaven with three boys to play with. Fraidy came up onto the porch and jumped in my lap after they left and Uncle George and I sat and talked for a while.

He said, "I know you didn't plan on having to deal with this stuff this week but Mrs. Withrow was just plain determined. It was just easier to volunteer and do as she was hinting at because when she starts outright asking you never know what you are going to be called on to do."

I laughed because I could see Mrs. Withrow doing exactly that to get her way. "I don't know where we are going to put all this stuff. I've already got to clean out two rooms … one for the baby and one for Austin and find someplace to put the stuff we move out of there. We'll be wall to wall boxes and furniture at this rate and this isn't exactly a small house."

"I'd store it for you Baby Girl but we've already had to clean out our own attic to give Mick and Tommy a place to sleep besides the downstairs sofa. They're lucky they didn't have to sleep out on the porch. If we weren't having to mill so much of the lumber ourselves by hand we could have had the house weathered in by now. I've dropped some good sized pine trees but they need to season a bit before we can use them. I didn't want to but it looks like I'm going to have to dismantle one of the small barns so we can get the beams and roofing material to finish things off. Them babies ain't gonna wait on our plans. Ken said Missy has a couple of weeks at best and Alicia has maybe a month if they counted things out right. Laurabeth will come around after that and then they's you. And if you young 'uns ain't careful we'll be starting it all over again right after that. "

I was so not touching that last statement so I went back to the subject of the building materials. "But what about all the abandoned houses? I thought there wouldn't be any problems getting what you needed."

"People have been burning up the wood outta those houses to heat with. Crazy. Some of that stuff is treated. The newer homes ain't worth a plug nickel. It's a wonder they didn't fall apart in a good wind; little more than plastic siding over thin plywood once you start taking 'em apart. What houses is left are either termite damaged, vandal damaged or the beams are too short for what we need. I could piece a couple of the short beams if I had the right size bolts but if I don't have to I'd rather not. A solid piece is just going to last longer and bow less. And because of the added weight we've had to go back in and add beams in the crawl space. Used more wood and nails than I originally planned for. Been fixing what little bit of termite damage and wood rot we've found along the way as well. Seems like two steps forward and a step and a half back every time we move."

"I know. We were all set to move forward after Christmas and now this. I feel … "

"Don't Baby Girl. It'll work out just like we'll eventually get the house finished … just not in our time but the good Lord's. You still pining over things?"

"You mean over Harris Gilkins?"

"Yup. Figured you might could use someone to talk to. Rand's a good boy but almost too strong. Makes it hard for him to understand."

"Rand and Ken don't want me to talk about it. They want me to just … get over it or past it and call it done."

"That's one way of handling it but you don't strike me as you cotton to doing things that way."

"I don't know Uncle George. It's brought up memories of other things I felt like I had to do."

"Well, Ken is right in it ain't good for you to let it eat you up but I want you to think on something here. Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for good for those that love the Lord. That's all things Baby Girl, not just the things we are comfortable with or happy with or anything else. All things. Even the things we don't understand and I reck

on you're gonna have to put this down as one of those."

"That was my Dad's favorite verse. He used to say that God would never put more on us that we can bear but … "

"Well, nothing against your Daddy but I got another way of looking at it having gone through a few trials of my own. First Corinthians 10:13 says that God won't allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear but nowhere could I find in the Word where He said that He won't let the trials come along and break us down. I think He does allow trials that we can't handle ourselves because He wants us to turn to Him. Now whether the things you've had to do fall into the temptation category or the trial category I can't say though I have my suspicion. What I do think is either way you need to let God have it. Just let Him have it Baby Girl 'cause it's plain to anyone with sense that you didn't like doing what you got called on to do. What you did was justifiable in the eyes of man but no man is going to be able to ease your mind and your heart over this."

What Uncle George said was so close to what I had been thinking that it was kind of scary. Maybe that is God saying, "Kiri, you are on the right track. Stop fooling around and just do it. You'll feel better and that's what I want for you."

It makes me wonder how bad I want to feel better or if I've felt bad for so long that I'm afraid to let it go. Now, that's not a comfortable think to think at all.


	78. Chapter 77

Chapter 77

 **January 24** **th** – Four more days, I can stand this for just four more days. I think. At least I have lots of thinking time. That's both good and bad. I have time to go through more of the books and grab ideas from Momma's files but if I have time to think about how things can work, I also have time to think about how things can go wrong. When that happened I forced myself to stop and start thinking about the good things in my life.

For instance, it was nice to have the house to myself today. Austin is a better kid than I expected. I think he was just starved for affection and has latched onto Rand and I because we treat him like he belongs already. I saw some of the boys in foster care that were young like that really latch onto Aunt Wilma looking for a mother figure. Aunt Wilma talked to me one time after a really bad case. She said the boys would mistake her caring for love. I was fourteen at the time and I think it was her way to warn me off of getting too attached to her as well. I hadn't thought about that conversation in years. I promised myself right then that I wouldn't be like Aunt Wilma with Austin. It would either be for real or it wouldn't, none of this caught in the middle stuff so that the poor kid would only get confused.

The reason why I had some alone time today is that Austin went with Rand to pick up the limestone chunks. Woofer looked at me like a lost soul, already missing Austin. I told the big goofy mutt to go chase something and after giving a doggy groan he went out and started sniffing around in the woods which was his second favorite past time.

I sat on the sofa and worked on a list of things I wanted to do. First off I had sent a list with Uncle George to give to Missy. Austin needs clothes and Rand doesn't have any to spare. And there is no way it would be fair to cut down any of my clothes for him. I can make him some button down shirts, I can even make him jeans since I have those bolts of denim that Ram sent me, but if I don't have to I'd rather try and get him something off the rack to save some time. And he needs it all … jeans, t-shirts, and underclothes. I found a packaged pair of boys pajamas that I had picked up when I had first salvaged one of the houses that are now demolished but they aren't exactly meant for warmth and they are going to swallow him whole. I took the elastic out of the waist band and changed them to draw string. They'll certainly give him growing room but I have a feeling he'll out grow the legs before he out grows the waist. That only took me an hour since the treadle was still downstairs, then I got going with my next project.

One of the things that I had noticed, after thinking about it for a while, was that while there was a lot of staple food items, and basic services and materials, I didn't see any convenience foods or mixes. Not even any soup mixes. I know it makes sense as most of those have probably been used up by people long ago. We have quite a bit left but I've been rationing ours and using it to piece out the fresh stuff coming out of the garden and smokehouse. But, you'd think someone would have come up with something to replace the store bought mixes.

I also gave Missy's idea another think about lingerie. It won't ever become a career for me but I'm thinking at the next swap meet to have a booth. On the other hand, I might be better off trading the stuff at the Shack that way no one would know where it came from. I'll have to talk it over with Rand. Either way I need to make up some more of those mixes for us, especially since "us" isn't just Rand and I any more. There's Austin to think about and the baby.

And speaking of the baby I snuck the booklet off of Rand's nightstand and started reading it. I figure I can't make the situation go away by hiding from it. I flipped through the book and got a pretty graphic picture of what is going to happen to my body. Funville here I come but what I was actually looking for was the list that Rand had mentioned. Toward the back there was chart that showed all the different stuff the modern baby was expected to have in the nursery. Man oh man. On the other hand I could pretty much dump about half the list because we weren't "modern" any more. For instance a car seat. If there was a wagon accident not even a car seat was going to keep the baby from getting hurt. There were toy things in the list too like those jumping saucer things. Might be nice to have but it's not like I could go down to the wallyworld and buy one. On the other hand a highchair and cradle was pretty important and we already had both of those thanks to Rand's foresight. We also had a lot of baby clothes and things like that only I've never really taken a good look so cleaning and organizing the baby's room went onto my priority list, not the top but up there. I remember Daddy talking about how his parents were so poor when his oldest sister came along that she slept in wooden grocery box until his mother's father built them cradle and they used that for all of their babies after that. Daddy also talked about baby clothes made out of old flour sacks and remembering wearing "big boy pants" that had the flour mill logo on the seat of them. Are we going to go back to that? It looks like it. For how long I wonder.

What went on the top of my list was to find some way to get some clothes that were gonna fit me. I'd only been wearing the overalls a little over two weeks and I could already tell they were going to fit another couple of weeks … maybe. I think I can make do with some of Momma's old tops, she was bigger than me and didn't ever wear fitted shirts so they should work. What is going to be a bear is finding something to cover the bottom half of me with. I suppose I could make some fleece pants with but I hate to use the material for something that will only be used for a few months. Maybe I can make some jumpers if I can just find something to cover my legs up with. Maybe I can knit some really long socks.

I ate the beans and rice that Rand left for me in a thermos and then I got flustered and decided to go sit on the porch for a little while. I took the rifle outside but I felt guilty and couldn't settle. I was just about to go back inside when I heard a buggy coming down the road. I was just about to run inside when I heard, "Kiri? You outside? Is that dog gonna eat us up?"

I called Woofer to my side and then shouted back, "I've got him Cassie."

From around the hedge came Cassie and then came Julia carrying her baby. "Hope you don't mind company. Julia needs to feed the bottomless pit."

Julia grumbled, "Enough Cass, I warned you when you volunteered to take me over to Momma O's for the morning." To me she said, "Do you mind Kiri? I … I just … not in public in the buggy going down the road, no matter how much he hollers."

I was about to explain that I couldn't get up and offer them anything when Cassie said, "Take a load off your feet or we are going to hear it from Rand. You are feeling better though I guess since you are outside on the porch."

Trying to answer them both I said, "No I don't mind Julia. And yes, I'm feeling better."

They didn't stay long, only about thirty minutes. That was just long enough for Julia to feed the baby … and didn't that give me something to think about … and to change him. I didn't ask questions about the baby and stuff though I suppose I should have. I've let the things with Julia go but I'm not _that_ comfortable with her yet. "Julia, I heard y'all had a stranger on your land."

"Yeah, Ron says that part of the property is in a bad location. We get a lot of non-locals passing through there. Mr. Henderson has suggested that we get together with some other of the River Road families and put a patrol out there to … deter strangers from crossing the land instead of using the established roads. People just don't read No Trespassing signs these days. Have you had anyone?"

"Not for a while, not since those bandits or whatever you want to call them. But then again we aren't on the road and Mr. Henderson's men patrol around here all the time."

Cassie jumped in with, "Poppy tries Kiri, but he says there are signs of strangers a lot more than he is comfortable with. People come out this way to hunt and leave a mess behind. If we have a dry spell and some hunter leaves a campfire or coals unattended … it doesn't take much imagination to figure out what could happen. Poppy said that it has been a couple of decades since we've had a really big fire threaten the town itself but …"

Nope, it doesn't take much imagination to picture what could happen. Cassie and Julia left and Woofer was fascinated with the leftover smell of baby and spent a good ten to fifteen minutes memorizing the new odor. I was feeling a little worried and chilled so I moved back inside and stayed there making notes until Rand and Austin got home looking real pleased with themselves although I wasn't to know why until dinner time.

I was trying to clean up my stack of notes and listen to Austin rattle on about all that they'd done … how cool Bud and Lou were, how Rand let him drive the wagon, the number and size of the limestone chunks (they dumped the rock near the gully), and on and on. I'm glad he had a good time but I was having a hard time concentrating. But I'd never tell him that, especially as he was building and lighting a fire in the fireplace the entire time he was talking.

"I couldn't do much after the wagon was full of rocks so I picked up all the fallen limbs and put them in a pile. I really surprised Rand. We tied the wood onto the rocks and brought it ho … um … back." He then fell silent and acted busy. It didn't take a genius to figure out he'd embarrassed himself and was worried that he had talked too much.

Rand had come out and caught the last little bit, looked at me and winked, and then said, "You had it right the first time little man. This is home. So long as you want to stay with us call it what it is."

I could see him getting wound up and trying really hard not to let it show. To help him out and give him something to focus on I said, "Come here Austin so I can see how much I need to take these legs up."

That got his attention and he warily came over and tolerated me putting the pajamas against him. "Well, I'm glad I didn't cut any of the leg off yet, you are going to need the length. I'm sorry I can't do much about …"

"These are for me?!"

"Yeah, I know they don't fit really well and … "

"Really for me?"

"Uh … yeah. Really for you. If you want them I figured you could use … "

He reached out and touched them with his finger tips. "If you don't mind rolling the sleeves and pants legs up for tonight I'll hem them tomorrow. Go on, you can take them if you want."

I actually had to put them in his hand and then he hugged them to him and his eyes were really big. "I don't mind big. I always wore my brothers' old clothes. Peepaw had them in boxes. By they time they got to me they never fit right but Dad said I had my school uniform for my good clothes and the others were good enough to work and play in."

Rand broke in, "Hey buddy, go put those in your room and we'll have some dinner." And then he winked at Austin.

"Ok, what are you guys up to?" I asked. Guys get like that, I don't care how old or young they are, they are up to something.

What they were up to was a surprise. Seems several palm trees had to be taken down to clear the field and make it ready to plant for pasture so they broke into the heart of them and brought me home some fresh "swamp cabbage." These weren't sabal palms but Rand said most palms you could eat the hearts of. He stripped the core down to the ivory-white heart then he julienned it and you can then use it the same way you would any salad green. Rand left ours raw and then just made a vinegar and oil dressing and yum yum. I ate more of the "salad" than I did of the beans that we are still finishing off. Man, I knew I was craving fresh food but I guess I hadn't realized how much. Now, I burped for a couple of hours afterwards but I didn't care. Good food is good food.

Rand and Austin cleaned up the dishes and themselves and I had a few minutes of peace. It was too cold for them to fool around much and when they came out I told Rand that I was going to take a bath. "Nope. Ken said not until …"

"Oh …grrrr. Fine, I'm going to go wash up anyway. I will be so glad when Sunday gets here."

"I'll just be glad to know you're going to be OK. I know it's hard Babe. I didn't like being stuck in bed when Ken and I were here sick or after the VRC got through with me. It won't be much longer … hopefully."

Hopefully is right. But I have to admit if I had to go through this to get Rand some help then I guess it is for the best. You can already tell that Austin thinks Rand is something else. It's kinda cute. Gosh! Where did that come from?! . Ew. I better watch that or Rand is going to think I've gone off my rocker for real. That booklet warned that I might get emotional and something called "nest-y." It is like some alien is inhabiting my body and turning me soft. This is so bizarre.

Not too long after dark we all headed off to bed. I know seven o'clock is pretty early to go to sleep but when you are getting up around four or five in the morning and then working hard all day, seven o'clock sounds about right on most nights. I had Rand take a warming pan for Austin's sheets while the wood stove in our room warmed things up. Both Rand and Austin were asleep in no time but I'm not doing enough to get to sleep as fast so I finished today's journal entry.

Tomorrow Austin is going with Rand again, at least for half a day. That should give me time to work on a schedule of things I want to get done. I have got to get out in the garden. It's warm enough, even though it is still cool at night, that the covers need to come off the seedlings. I also need to get my seeds going in the greenhouse and … well, that's for tomorrow. If I start thinking about that right now I'll never get to sleep.

 **January 25** **th** – Three days and counting then I'm free, free, free!

 **January 26** **th** – Two days and counting and Sunday can't get here soon enough. My to do list is now officially longer than I am tall. I'm not kidding. I got bored and laid the pages end to end and the list is actually twice as long as I am tall plus a couple of inches. I hope Rand and Austin leave some room in their schedule to help me because I feel like I'm a month behind.

 **January 27** **th** – I came real close to throwing something at Ken today. The guys all thought it was just so funny but I am telling you I did not. He took my blood pressure on one arm then squinted his eyes and then took it on my other arm. Then he took it on the first arm again. I was fit to be tied and worried sick. "Well," he said with a deep sigh. "I've checked it three times Kiri … "

"What?! You can't be serious!"

"Oh I am. You've got a clean bill of health. You can get up tomorrow but I still don't want you to lift much more than a cast iron pot."

I heard Rand snorting and snickering, the rat had been in on it.. I swear, half the human population must suffer from terminal testosterone poisoning.

 **January 28** **th** – Free at last, free at last! Of course that was just in time to go to the church service and become the main course in a banquet of gossip.

OK, maybe that came out a little nastier sounding than I meant it but I sure am sick of being the center of attention for some folks. It was good to be out but there were a few uncomfortable moments as well. Lucretia was there, it's the only place her brother has agreed to let her see her kids. The little children were already having their own Bible study time when we arrived – I was a little puke-y this morning – and as we were passing by trying to make sure Austin got to his group with Mick and Tommy I heard Lucretia raise her voice enough so every could hear her tell her kids, "That's the … the … female … what killed your precious uncle."

Oh great. But I heard a couple of adults being forced to cough into their hands when Brendon comes up and says all innocent like, "You think she's telling 'em so that they can thank you?"

I was so tempted to hit him with the pillow I'd brought to sit on but that would have only made things worse. Suddenly I was surrounded by Crenshaws, Crenshaw in-laws, and assorted other people. It was like being walled in and it stayed that way the whole time we were there.

When services were over I made sure that everyone got their pans and bowls back and made sure to tell them all thank you real nice. I won't be forgetting these folks anytime soon. They did what they didn't have to do. If the chance comes around for me to help them I will.

I found out today what Rand is being paid for his work and I'm not quite sure if I like it or not though I understand it. He's being paid in shares; shares of future gains. Some of it is feed and hay for the animals, some of it is crops like sorghum or soybeans, and from Mr. Henderson he is getting shares of trade goods that will be coming in shortly … or it's supposed to. I guess that makes sense but it is also a risk. It seems like everything in life is lately.


	79. Chapter 78

Chapter 78

 **January 29** **th** – I feel like I'm still a month behind but we got a bit caught up in the gardens today. Rand wouldn't let me go as much as I wanted but then again I didn't feel like I was able to go as much as I used to. Constant bathroom breaks for me also held me back. Darn that booklet anyway, why does it have to be right so much of the time?

The gardens weren't as bad as they could have been but they needed attention. We pulled off all the protective covers off of things. Good thing too because some of the seedlings were getting leggy and some of the cooler loving crops were actually getting too hot in the middle of the day. Austin and Rand spent a long time hauling water barrels and then running the drip hoses to each row. I gave up on the square foot gardening for some of the stuff because I don't have automatic sprinklers. I need something convenient not necessarily space saving now that Rand has enlarged the original garden plot. Maybe I'll go back to it at some point but not this season. I've got enough to figure out.

We set the barrels up on blocks we've set at the head of every couple of rows. Rand installed old spigots at the base of each barrel. Attached to the spigots are old garden hoses that we scavenged. We've poked a lot of pin holes in the hoses and capped off the ends of each length of hose. With the barrels full we just turn the spigots to the on position and water shoots through the hoses and out the pin holes. It's not a perfect solution but it's better than having to water everything by hand like we were doing in the beginning. That was a back breaking bit of work. Now I only have to water where it is obvious that it needs it.

Rand salvaged some honest to goodness black drip hose from an old tree farm but the hose was really long and meant to be hooked up to an electric well with lots of pressure. We couldn't duplicate it so we plan on saving it for the corn rows and figure out how to pump the water through as best we can.

We did lose a few plants, I guess you can't get away from that, lucky for us it wasn't too much of any one type of crop to be overly worrisome so long as the February crops make. I still have seed held back and that should let us plant enough that there won't be a shortage for next season's seeds.

What did hack me off a bit was that I noticed, even with the fence and Woofer and Fraidy doing their share that something was nibbling around the edges. Whatever it was hit everything but the potatoes. Rand said they wouldn't either because potatoes are kin to tobacco the same as tomatoes are and not even deer will touch them unless they are starving to death. "And Babe, there is plenty of mast even with the hard freeze we had so unless the animals over forage I don't think we'll have as much trouble as we did last year."

I certainly hope not. With Austin to feed I need to increase the fresh and preserved food, especially as our "store bought" stuff goes away. Not that I'm complaining. Austin hasn't been with us long and sometimes I still catch myself feeling weird about having him around, but on the other hand Rand seems to really enjoy it. He is used to having a younger tagalong following him around whether that was Brendon or Mick and he has the big brother thing down pat. And Austin is eating it up. His older brothers really missed out by shutting him out.

I'm so glad to be able to get back into the kitchen. It's not that I'm ungrateful for the dishes people brought by while I was off my feet but I don't think I'm ever going to be able to look a bean in the same way again. For lunch I made egg salad sandwiches. We had a bunch of fresh eggs that needed to be used up. I suppose I could have taken them over to the Shack to trade but egg salad is what I was craving and we had it. For dinner I knew the guys at least would need something heartier so I made Root Soup.

I cubed up one of the last of the canned hams we have (gave me about two cups of cubes) and put it in six cups of water and boiled it for ten minutes. To that I added one-half cup of dried potato slices, one-half cup of dried parsnip slices, one-half cup of dried turnip slices, one-half cup of dried green beans, one-half cup of dried brussel sprouts, one tablespoon of dried onion pieces, one tablespoon of dried grated carrot, one tablespoon of dried green bell pepper pieces, one-half tablespoon of dried celery powder, one teaspoon of chopped garlic, one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, and one-half teaspoon of celery seed. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but on the other hand there weren't any leftovers when the recipe was supposed to make six servings.

What you do after you add all the dried stuff to the boiling ham broth is you make sure it comes to a boil again and then remove the pan from the heat, cover the pan, and let it sit for thirty minutes or a little longer. Then you put the pan back on the heat, bring the mixture back up to a boil, and simmer the soup for another thirty minutes until all the veggies are tender. I fixed corn muffins to go with it and there were enough left over that Austin and Rand mixed up some sorghum molasses and butter and put that on them for dessert.

Rand is definitely going to need to get that passive hot water heater set up on the roof of the barn, and maybe one on the house roof as well. The water tank on the back of the stove just isn't going to be enough to keep up with our needs. In addition to the extra laundry that Austin is going to make (assuming I can ever get the poor boy some more clothes) the baby is going to make a lot of laundry. Gosh all these things to think of.

 **January 30** **th** – Talked to Rand and he'd rather wait before we get into having a booth at the swap meets. Seems they've set the community calendar so that a swap meet will follow the Saturday after a church service. This way there is something going on every weekend for those that are interested. It's going to be more than a swap meet though; more like a social and I don't know what else to call it. The Ladies' Auxiliary will have a sewing exhibit and class, there will be games for the youngest kids, horseshoes for the men, and I don't know what all. I suppose we should enjoy it while the weather is nice and before the work really piles up; when that happens it is going to get hard to find the time to go to every church service and every swap meet and some of the other social events that people are talking about.

Bill and Missy close the Shack for the swap meets and they have a wagon they've built out of an old lightweight trailer that they will haul with goods in it. Bill has some men that he has "hired" to act as security to and from the park. I figure Rand shouldn't be the only one trying to improve life for our little family. I made two halter tops and two "foundation garments" as my great grandmother used to call them. Not near the same as the aerodynamically designed and scientifically improved versions you used to be able to get in the store but better than nothing says I. I made them both in light weight pre-washed muslin so they should be durable, especially if they are hand washed rather than boiled with the rest of the laundry. I made them in average sizes and I guess I'll tell Missy if she gets a lot of call for a particular size I'll work on it somehow as long as I can get material.

I also found a bunch of old costume patterns in Momma's stuff like sun bonnets, aprons, prairie dresses, some civil war era outfits, and a few belly dancing costume patterns of all things. I so do not want to know why Momma had those last ones although she used to take in some sewing to make extra money so maybe they are just leftovers from those jobs. There were also some lingerie patterns and bathing suit patterns that I might be able to use. The main chore is going to be getting the material I need although for the undies I can just use old t-shirt material I think. This could be where Ram comes in handy. I haven't got it all figured out yet and the sewing is just one idea I've had.

My next idea has some of the same issues as the first … supplies. Only the supplies are actually ingredients. When I got tired of sewing I stopped and scrounged around in the kitchen and in Momma's craft supplies and came up with some plastic baggies that I filled with some convenience mixes.

The first batch I made was powdered vegetable broth. I mixed together one teaspoon each of the following dried powders: onion, celery, tomato, spinach, bell pepper, and carrot. Then I added in one teaspoon of cornmeal. Next was half a teaspoon of each of the following: dried parsley, cayenne pepper, all-purpose flour, and chopped dried garlic. That will net you about three tablespoons of mix. You add one cup of boiling water to one tablespoon of the mix and you have instant vegetable broth. I quadrupled the batch and wound up with twelve little bead baggies of mix. If these don't get any movement I'll tell Missy just to give them back and I'll use them for our bug bags. Tomorrow I'm going to make some muffin mixes up; but not many. There is no sense wasting our supplies if they aren't going to bring in anything worth the outgoing effort.

Speaking of bug bags … or Bobs as Rand calls them … Rand pulled ours out tonight and reworked them and made one for Austin too. They are going to start carrying the small ones with them when they are out – Austin cut his hand on a devil's walking stick today and they had to come all the way back to the house from the gully just to get a bandage for it. The cut wasn't long but it was deep, more of a puncture, and it took me some time to clean it out. I've cleaned it out again since then and I'll clean it out again in the morning. It doesn't look like there was anything but a little dirt down in it the first time but better safe than sorry. I'm just glad we still have triple antibiotic cream to put on it.

 **January 31** **st** – I said the heck with it this morning since it was raining anyway, and made two more sets of foundation garments. Now that I know what I'm doing it isn't so bad. Not only that but Austin said something that got me to thinking. Apparently his grandfather had a lady friend by the name of Miss Lucille. Austin must have overheard Rand and I talking about what I was going to wear when I outgrow the overalls and he told me how Miss Lucille used to be in charge of costuming for Pioneer Days at the local historical farm. "Some of them women were awful big, bigger even that Peepaw, and they still wore dresses. Miss Lucille just told 'em to pull the skirts up real high that way she didn't have to sew new ones every year. How come you don't just do that?"

"Because I don't like to show my legs."

"You could wear socks. That's what I do when I had to wear shorts for PE."

Good grief I feel stupid. Now why did it take a ten year old boy to give me that idea? It might get a little prickly when summer comes back but that'll be better than having to go around with my pants unsnapped all the time worrying that they'll fall down.

The bags of mix I made today were for apple muffins. I mixed a half cup of sugar, one and one-half teaspoons of baking powder, one-quarter cup of brown sugar, one teaspoon of ground cinnamon, one cup of chopped dried applies, two cups of all-purpose flour, two tablespoons of powdered eggs and one-third cup of powdered milk. I stapled the following directions to the bag: Add one cup of water and one-quarter cup of oil and mix just until moistened. Spoon batter into greased muffin tins and bake fifteen to eighteen minutes in a preheated 400 degree F oven or until golden brown.

Today's lunch was fried tree rat. The squirrels are coming back out and they are hungry. Rand found some in the barn this morning scrounging the feed that the animals drop. Either Fraidy had gotten fat and sassy and can pick and choose her dinners or the squirrels are so numerous she can't eat them all, even with Woofer's help. We don't want the squirrels building nests in the barn so he set up a live trap in there after he took the animals out for the morning. Two hours and he had four squirrels.

That's not a good sign. He didn't even have to bait the cage too heavily. After the larger than expected lunch I decided to make soup for dinner. I took three cups of instant potato flakes from my LTS cans, a cup of powdered coffee creamer, a package of chicken gravy mix that I had in our food storage, one-quarter cup of grated parmesan cheese, two tablespoons of seasoning blend (I like Italian), one teaspoon of dried minced onion, and one-half teaspoon of pepper and then mixed all the dry ingredients together. I put eight cups of boiling water in a big pan and then added the dry ingredients. All you have to do is stir it up to bring apart any clumps of dry ingredients and then let stand for five minutes to thicken. I crumbled a little dried bacon on top of each serving and then put a basket of cat head biscuits on the table too. Good thing we have feed because by the time I give what few scraps there are to Woofer Taz and his harem don't get anything at all from the table any more.

 **February 1** **st** – Now today has been some kind of busy. Got the new garden planted, pretty much a duplicate of what we planted in January except for a few different varieties. Spent a long cool morning getting this done but with all three of us focused on it it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

The rest of my work time was taken up by cleaning the house. I'd been putting it off knowing what a job it was going to be but there just wasn't any way around it. There was stuff still on the porch that needed to be brought in before a good wind and rain storm came, Austin needed his room cleaned out and … well, I needed to take a good look at what we had in the baby's room.

I think I did too much. I was ready to pop a couple of Tylenol in my mouth until I remembered what Ken said so instead I made up a warm compress and just put it across my lower back. Being pregnant changes everything.

First thing was first, I pulled all of the storage tubs and bags out of Austin's room. I don't see any way around it, we are going to have to store some of the tubs up in the dormer room. I'll leave that to Rand tomorrow and he can handle Austin however he sees fit. What I want to do is move the straight back sofa (looks kind of Victorian) up to the front bonus room and then take the futon that is already in the bonus room and move it up to the dormer room in the place Rand used to put his mattress on the floor. The two cheap (aka junky) chest of drawers in the bedrooms I emptied and had Rand move them out to the storage room in the barn. I figured he could use them to organize some of his tools and supplies … or break them apart and used them as building materials. I put the nice chiffarobe in the baby's room and put a full-sized armoire in Austin's room.

I emptied one of the big trunks that had dishes in it and had them slide that into Austin's room as well. I plan on putting spare linens and blankets in the chest to fit his bed which will save me the room in the regular linen closet. I did the same thing for the baby's room and also slid a small chest of drawers into the closet to use for baby stuff.

I got everything moved out of the two rooms that didn't belong and even managed to move a few things in there but boy howdy there was still an awful mess. I found places for all of the pots, pans, and dishes. I can't imagine ever using all of that stuff but Mrs. Withrow said I might be surprised. I suppose but it is still hard to imagine.

I think I've even got spots for all the furniture. In addition to what I had them move around … I still haven't told Rand about the sofas though … I moved one of the chests to the end of our bed and I was able to move my keep sake stuff into it with plenty of room for other stuff, moved the old spinning wheel up to the craft room, put two small end tables and a low slung chest upstairs on either side of the sofa (that I'm more determined to move around the longer I think about it) and we'll move the real book cases upstairs to the bonus room too but that will have to wait until Brendon stops by as getting them up those stairs will be tricky.

Then I found places for what I could. I still have a pretty good pile of stuff … and the sofa/futon issue … that need to be finished up but I was beat and Rand is wanting to go to bed. I think he needs a little attention. It's going to be weird with Austin in the house but doors close. Besides I guess we better get used to it.

 **February 2** **nd** – I think I overdid Baking Day a little bit. In addition to the normal loaves of bread I make I made cookies, doughnuts, an applesauce cake, and some pecan brittle. I must be nuts. I had to force myself to let Austin and Rand have the spoon and mixing bowl to lick. I'd laugh at myself if I wasn't so embarrassed that they'd ask me to explain. When I compared the baby to an alien making me act different maybe I wasn't so far off after all.

I keep trying to imagine what my life would have been like if the flu hadn't happened. I'd be in my senior year of highschool biding my time until graduation and praying that I got the scholarships that would get me into college. I'd probably still be struggling socially with only a few friends and none of them any closer than arms length. I probably would be captain of the debate team … assuming the coach hadn't found a prodigy to favor it with. Aunt Wilma would still be alive and I'd probably still be lonely. I wouldn't have met Rand and … that's enough. Why imagine what is never going to happen, what can't happen. Why would I miss that stuff anyway? Sure, my life is a lot different. I'm different. But I'm beginning to be a whole lot more comfortable in my skin than I ever hoped to be.

Enough philosophizing. Swap meet is tomorrow. I have to be up early to pack our picnic basket and to have the stuff ready to pass off to Missy as incognito as possible.


	80. Chapter 79

Chapter 79

 **February 3** **rd** – I swear! What is it about getting a group of people in one location? I think it must bring on a touch of the crazies. All I can say is this time it wasn't me that had the crazies though on second thought a few of them people were close to driving me that direction. And it really wasn't people from our community; it was mostly the strangers that came in and really wonked up the chemistry.

Up early, doing the breakfast thing, the chore thing, yada, yada, yada. Loaded up the wagon and off we went. I offered to let Austin sit up with Rand but he wanted to sit in the wagon bed with Woofer. Those two are nearly inseparable now. I can't say I mind. I know Woofer needed a lot more attention than he was getting, I just didn't have it in me to give him more and Rand didn't have the time either. Even Fraidy seems to be enjoying the space she is getting now that Woofer isn't constantly trying to get her attention. I haven't seen her swipe at his nose for several days now.

As soon as we got there we noticed a completely different feel to the air than last time. At first I felt guilty because I thought it had to do with what I did … until Mitch came over.

"Lots of strangers around and some of them are a bit odd. We're setting up a guard on the cattle and wagons. Kiri … look, I don't want you taking this the wrong way but … "

"Mitch, just spit it out. I'm OK with straight talking. You worried about a repeat of last time?" I asked my boldness catching him a little off guard.

"Well … you want the truth then the answer is yes _and_ no. Don't get bent out of shape Rand. I know what happened last time was … unfortunate. But … well … you just hafta see these people. I'm not too sure but that some of them aren't aiming to cause trouble intentionally later on. To what purpose I don't know but it could be misdirection or they could be checking us over to see how strong we are. One in particular matches the description of a bad character some of the river communities have passed along as a warning."

Rand grumbled, "Great. You think I should take Kiri and Austin home?"

Mitch, noticing the boy and the dog peeking up over the edge of the wagon said, "Hey Austin, how ya doing buddy?"

"Fine Mr. Peters," Austin answered but he looked quickly at Rand to see if we were going to turn around and leave.

"Rand, I can't tell you what to do but if these swap meets get as successful as we hope we aren't going to be able to control all the folks that come to 'em. We need things from outside the community. We need to open up some lines of communication so that news – both good and bad – can be passed around faster. We can only feed on ourselves for so long."

I could tell Rand was still on the fence so I said, "If it's me you are worried about I'll stick with Momma O and Mrs. Withrow or maybe I'll help Missy. Bill should be around there most of the time and when he isn't didn't you tell me he hired some security?"

"Fine, but what about Austin?"

"I could come with you Rand. Really. And I'll be quiet. I won't make trouble. Honest!"

I knew that Rand was sunk just as soon as Austin looked at him with those begging puppy dog eyes. Rand can be such a sucker.

Giving in Rand told Austin, "Fine. But if I catch you wandering off without permission I'll send you to the wagon. You got that?"

"Yeah. You bet Rand. I promise. Um … is … is Mick and Tommy going to be here?"

I tried really hard not to smile. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Rand was having the same problem. Rand made sure that Woofer's rope was securely tied and gave Austin his marching orders … that's what Daddy called it when he set the rules before we went some place; all the can't do this and can't do that and the might be able to do something or other only if we followed the first two to the letter. Daddy was strict but only because he loved us enough to go to the trouble. I didn't appreciate then but it's weird how when you don't have it you miss knowing there is someone in the world that gives a heck how you turn out.

I asked myself more than once today when did I turn into a real live grown up and get old. I am seventeen and I acted more mature than some of the people at the swap meet that were a lot older than me. Is it getting married? Is it suddenly having to act like a parent for Austin? Is it the baby growing inside me, changing me? Or is it all of that, or more than that combined?

I still feel like I'm the same me that I've always been but at the same time I'm a different me. Writing it down makes it sound kind of - what's that word - pretentious. Yeah, that's it. Writing the questions down like that makes me sound pretentious, like I'm trying to put on an act and make myself sound better than I am. But that isn't what I mean. I know what I mean but just like when I'm talking sometimes it's hard to make it come out the way I mean it to. I feel old and that is all there is to it.

After Rand agreed that we were going to stay I grabbed my basket out of the wagon, we made sure the picnic basket and water bottles were covered with hay, and then we walked towards the area where several tables were already set up and ready for customers.

I looked around and then I had to look around two more times before my brain would believe the pictures my eyes were sending it. I'm from Tampa, no one could claim it was a small town. I went to highschool in Tampa, one of the largest in the school district. I lived in a foster home and worked in a diner frequented by all sorts of characters. I'm used to weird, odd, and eccentric … but even I was having some trouble computing some of the folks wandering around in the park.

My stars! I think some of those people were playing like Mad Max had come to life. The way they dressed was everything from your semi-normal goth persona to a metallic punk-style to some that looked like they were trying to look like their favorite video game character to a … a … I guess they were some type of religious group. I never did figure out if they were a primitive Christian sect or if they were some kind of earth-worshippers or if they were something else all together; they weren't making their message real clear if you know what I mean. They were dressed in real simple cotton sack dresses, even the guys. They were wearing sandals made out of tires and walked with staffs. They looked like they had found a trunk of ancient shepherd costumes. Add to that we had real off-duty military folks – a few of them – and had some river folks that look like they'd just come in from a hunting expedition.

Of course the locals weren't looking exactly what normal used to be either. There were plenty of regular day clothes but in general they were mixed in with wardrobe pieces made of hides, furs, gator skin, etc. For instance, there was a guy dressed in leather-patched jeans wearing a western-style shirt with snaps instead of buttons, snake skin belt, gator boots, and a woven palmetto frond hat with a hat band made of what Rand said were wild turkey feathers. Rand said the guy looked like he had a hangover from drinking some Wild Turkey also. Well, he was something all right but I wasn't sure if it was a hangover or not.

I suppose I shouldn't be talking. I look like a reject from that old show called Hee Haw. I mean seriously. Seeing the other people made me realize that I didn't look so much funny as ridiculous. What made it worse was there were some ladies there that had tried to make themselves look nice even with a limited wardrobe and some of the non-local girls looked … well, even I noticed they looked really nice with make up on and everything. I looked down at my rolled up overall pants, my striped socks above my beat up work boots and I still wonder if I'm not embarrassing Rand.

And the day just kept getting better ….

"Come on Austin, we'll walk Kiri over to Missy's and then we'll … Holy crow! Stay close!"

There was a crowd forming around the Trade Shack trailer. Rand tried to push his way through the crowd. It was Austin who spotted a way around the crowd by coming in behind the wagon. We almost didn't get where we were going because of the security guards (I heard Rand mutter something like "Mall Cops" under his breath) and then I saw Missy leaning trying to catch her breath and heard Bill shouting, "One at a time ! #$%^, one at a time!"

Boy was Missy big, I mean so big she really had no business trying to do what she was trying to do. "For once Missy, just tell me simple, what can we do to help."

Rand went to one side of their table and worked pre-orders – orders that had been agreed upon at a set price before the swap meet – so that Bill could haggle with new customers. Austin and I bagged or tagged outgoing and incoming items or folded them so that people could put them in their own carriers. Woofer played watchdog and wouldn't let anyone get too close to Missy who was in a chair still trying to catch her breath.

After about an hour the opening crowd thinned out and spread out to encompass the rest of the swap meet leaving Bill able to handle the front desk but Missy really wasn't in any shape to do anything yet. "Bill, why don't I stay and help? Rand really doesn't want me wondering loose and … "

"I didn't say it like that!" he huffed.

I laughed, "I know but it amounts to the same thing." A little conciliatorily I added, "I don't like the crowd of strangers anyway and this will give me something to do besides sit around moping that I didn't bring anything to do."

Bill said with relief, "Kiri, if you're willing to stay I'm more than glad to have you. Rand, I can use the help if you don't mind and you can see the security we have stationed here. I tried to talk that hard headed woman into staying home with Alicia and Laurabeth but she wouldn't listen."

Missy's stubbornness is even more legendary than mine. So, Rand appeased about my safety, I stayed while he and Austin went out looking.

"I hope he hasn't missed out on any deals with the late start but I'm glad you two popped in. Do me a favor, at the next lull check on Missy for me. She won't tell me how she's really feeling. All she does is say 'fine' every time I ask her and the last thing she looks like she is feeling is fine." Bill said under his breath so only I could hear.

It was another thirty minutes before I could get back to Missy. Bill was right, she didn't look good but there wasn't any getting her to admit it. "I'm pregnant and as big as a freaking elephant. How am I supposed to feel? Like Cinderella at the ball?"

I changed the subject real fast and handed her the basket I had brought. That distracted her all right. She wanted to know what everything was and what it contained.

"Next time write down the ingredients you used or at least make me a card that I can keep on file. We've got people that come in with allergies and stuff that are always asking if stuff has this, that, or the other in it and most of the time all I can do is guess. We've got this kid who comes in that is allergic to milk and he has to …"

"So teach him how to make soy milk."

"What?"

"Well, I figure if he could have goat's milk you would have said so teach him how to make soy milk from soy beans. I know you're bound to have a ton of those."

"Not a ton but close to it. Are you telling me you know how to make soy milk?"

"It's not rocket science Missy."

"Maybe not but I'm thinking that maybe I need to keep you on staff as a consultant." After I snorted at her comment leaving her with a pretty clear idea of what I thought of it she said, "Seriously girl. Give me the directions for soy milk and I'll give it to the kid next time he is in."

Soy milk really isn't that hard to make. For a full pitcher of milk you take a pound of uncooked soybeans, a half cup of sugar and a little flavoring … a slice of orange, a vanilla bean, etc. You cover your pound of soybeans with water overnight until they plump up. Next drain the beans in a colander and then get you a blending contraption. I have an old fashioned crank blender but last swap meet I saw that people were converting some new appliances to crank power … sort of what the Amish and strict Mennonites do. Put a little over a cup of beans in your blender and add water … one part beans to three parts water … and then blend until you have a fine pulp.

Pour the pulp into a non-stick pot and bring it to a rolling boil for twenty minutes. Skim off any foam that forms. You should also add your vanilla bean or whatever at this point. Put some cheesecloth over the colander and sit it in a large bowl. After you finish boiling the pulp pour it into the cheese cloth lined colander. Let the "milk" strain out of the pulp. Lift the four corners of the cheesecloth out of the colander and squeeze it to get as much "milk" out of the beans as possible. The leftover pulp can be fed to animals or used to make bean burgers or something like that.

If you don't have a vanilla bean or slice of orange or whatever, you can use extracts but if you do that don't add the flavoring until after the pulp has been strained out of the liquid. The liquid is then ready to be put into a pitcher and put someplace to cool. Homemade soy milk is only good for two or three days at a time so people should only make what they need during that time period unless they want to waste food.

After I finished explaining it to Missy things started hopping again and I went to help Bill. About twenty minutes into the rush I looked back and saw Missy talking to a couple of women and showing them the ladies' stuff I had made. They were both counting out Sand Dollars. I hadn't even realized those things were still being used. At the next lull I asked Bill since Missy was still messing with customers.

"Um Bill … "

"Hmm? Oh, those are special customers, don't worry about it. Missy will handle them and they won't give her a hard time."

"But they're using Sand Dollars."

"Yeah. We don't see too many of those but some of the people around town still have them. We take them in when we can and then trade them in at the military compound."

I was still confused. "But I thought they were just paper now."

"All they ever were was paper. They have the value assigned by the state government. They don't mean much for general trade and barter but if we can accumulate enough we take them to the military compound and place a large order for some commodity and it is an easier transaction for us."

"Oh."

Missy came up then and said, "Kiri, please tell me you are taking orders."

"Why?" I asked suspiciously.

"Because I'm standing here with an even dozen pre-orders for your undergarments and twice that many for those mixes you brought in. Every time I try and sit down I have someone else come by and want to know if we have any more of either. Bill, talk to her."

"Bill doesn't need to talk to me. I'm willing but what do Rand and I get for doing this?"

"What do you want?"

"Have you found any of those boys' clothes yet?"

"Don't worry about that, it's already covered and it's bagged up in the trailer. Rand came by and gave Bill a hand with some security stuff at the house and the Shack."

"Then let me talk to Rand, or put it on our account some way."

"I'd really rather not owe you Kiri, bookkeeping is tricky enough as it is."

"Let me think on it Missy. I'll let you know before we leave, OK?"

It was getting close to lunch time when Rand came back. "You hungry yet? I've got all the boys and they are about to eat me alive."

Bill said, "Go on. We are gonna shut down and take a break for a little while too. May not even open up if the crowd starts to thin any more."

So I went and was glad to, anything to get out of the crowd. We got back to the wagon just in time to see Mitch Peters dragging a drunk over to a wagon and throwing him in. "Haul him down the road a piece and dump him with the others."

Rand asked once we caught up to where Mitch stood watching the wagon pull away, "Others?"

"Yeah, you saw where they set up that bar of so-called 'adult beverages.' We've had some real fools acting up today."

I asked, "Who on earth would do something like that? Don't we have enough trouble without making more?"

"Don't know 'em but they fit the description of the trouble makers I told you about. You can just about smell that stuff before you get over there. Kiri you were well out of it. They were smart enough to set up a ways away from the main loop of tables but it still caused no end of trouble, especially when some of the women found out their men were spending what little trade they had on cheap corn liquor. Sorry Rand but I can't talk. I gotta go, I just got radioed we have a brawl over there now."

Austin, Mick, and Tommy climbed into the wagon bed and then helped me in while Rand boosted me. I felt ridiculous. And boys are honest to a fault about some things. "Wow Kiri, you're getting big. Good thing we were all here to help Rand get you into the wagon."

"Gee, thanks boys," I said but it flew over their heads. Rand looked at me when they weren't looking and got a big ol' guy look on his face and made me blush. I'll say one thing for Rand, he sure is getting a kick out of the changes my body is going through. They fascinate the heck out of him which is bizarre to me. I look at me and feel like a beached whale, when he looks at me he makes me feel like a queen. Just too weird.

For lunch I had brought a quart of salsa and a bunch of homemade tortilla chips that I made last night after dinner. They weren't as good as if I had just fried them up but they weren't bad either. I thought Mick and Tommy were going to go bonkers when they saw them and they listened to Austin like he was telling an adventure story when he explained how he had gotten to help make them. Austin's scrawny little chest was all poked out and so proud of what he had done, I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was no big deal; to the boys it really was.

There was also queso blanco grilled cheese sandwiches and apple juice to drink. For Rand I brought an extra sandwich made of the leftover BBQ venison we had for dinner last night.

When we walked back we found out that Bill was closing the Shack trailer and taking Missy home. "She won't admit it but she needs to go home and lay down. It's not worth the worry to stay here any longer; all the pre-orders have been picked up and we already did about three times the business we expected besides. Rand, anything you want me to tell your uncle?"

I heard Missy yell out from the trailer, "Bill, don't you let Kiri leave until that business is taken care of."

Rand's eyebrows hit his hairline, "Wow. She sounds … cranky."

Bill rolled his eyes, "You're telling me. She's trying to do too much but will she listen? Let's finish up before she decides to come out here and take care of things herself. Where's … oh here it is. This is the bag of clothes. Missy put a note in there too. And about that other stuff …"

"What other stuff?" Rand asked.

"The stuff in the basket from this morning," I explained. "I was going to use it to pay for the clothes but you took care of that already. Missy doesn't want to leave it on account so is there anything you need?"

"Actually," and Rand pulled a note pad out of his pocket and tore off a page and handed it to Bill. "You think you can get any of that stuff without us going broke in the process?"

"Yeah … yeah, as a matter of fact I just got some of this stuff in the other day. If you want to come by tomorrow I'll see what all I can pull together between now and then."

We left, me remembering to grab my basket just in time, and started walking and looking at the booths that were still open. "Sorry Babe, I should have come back sooner. It looks like a lot of people are starting to close down and head on home."

"That's all right. It's not like …" and about that time I got knocked into from behind sending me to my hands and knees suddenly and hard.

Woofer went crazy and Austin had a hard time hanging onto him. I was trying to drag myself up when someone ran over and told me to stay down, it was Julia. "Are you crazy? Where's the baby?" I asked her.

"With Ron's aunt already heading to the wagon. Just stay down, Pastor Ken is coming and Rand and Ron are about to put a whooping on …"

"Oh no, not another brawl! I'm not hurt, please tell Rand I'm not hurt. We don't need any more fights."

"Stay down Kiri and let the guys handle this one. There have been one too many drunks starting fights. I guess they didn't realize you were a girl with your hair up in your hat and the overalls on."

"Come on, do I look tall enough to be a guy?"

"They're drunk Kiri. Drunks don't have a lot of sense. They were just spoiling for a fight, a lot of drunks are just as nice as nice can be when they're sober but put a drink in their mouth and they turn into Mr. Hyde."

Rand and Ron didn't really have a chance to do much more than back the drunks up because Mitch and a couple of his guys ran over. But suddenly there was a pile on and all heck broke loose. Julia and I crawled out of the way as best we could but I was frantic because I couldn't find Austin or Woofer.

"Easy Kiri, we got 'em." That was Mick and he looked set to be a white knight with a baseball bat. Tommy was helping Mrs. DeLois wipe some blood off of Austin's knees.

She said, "Thank goodness I convinced Momma to just stay home today. She wasn't feeling well this morning and this would have been more than she needed."

If you weren't in the fight and didn't have menfolk involved in it, you got gone as fast as you could. I don't blame them but on the other hand, running from a fight just doesn't set well with me, especially if you are able bodied.

When it finally settled down I heard Mr. Henderson cussing a blue streak and then he said, "New ! #$ rule – NO LIQUOR AT THE SWAP MEETS! Anyone caught bringing it in will answer to me personally."

Then I heard another voice, "Who are you old man to tell anyone what they can and cannot do?" I found the voice attached to the guy Mitch said to watch out for.

"I'm going to be your worst flaming nightmare if you start messing in my territory George Corday. Word has already come down. You aren't nothing but trouble. You make trouble here you gonna find it the last thing you do in this life. You got me?" The sounds of shotguns and rifles being made ready sounded all over the park. I even saw Rand pump his shotgun which made my mouth fall open.

"Geez Kiri, close your mouth. You ought to know how Rand is. And you're the last person to be surprised by this happening," Julia whispered in my ear.

I didn't know whether to be insulted by that or not. I let it go either way as it wasn't worth it and she was right. I thought Corday had some sense when he left though it isn't the first time I've been wrong. Mr. Henderson called out, "OK folks, it is getting towards time to break it all down. If you still have business, let's get er done and we can all get home and get some food on the table before it gets dark."

Rand rushed over while Mr. Henderson bellowed out his "suggestions" and I had a time convincing him I was fine; a little scuffed up but just fine. Suddenly a shot rang out and there were some screams and I saw Mr. Henderson stumble and grab his gun with his off-hand. Then there was more gun fire and people were running and screaming all over the place.

Rand pushed us behind some trees and told us to stay there. The gunfire was making Woofer crazy and I couldn't blame the poor thing. No living thing wants to get caught in a battle, but he's a good dog and stuck close to Austin's side. Then I did something that wasn't exactly … well … OK, here it is. Ken said I couldn't practice shooting every day. He didn't say anything about if the necessity arose that I couldn't defend myself. Out of my fanny pack I took two of the old hi-points that I took off the gangbangers what feels like a lifetime ago.

"Mick." When he saw the gun his eyes got … old. "No cowboy moves. This is for just in case, understand?"

"Yeah Kiri. Dad wouldn't let me bring the rifle or you wouldn't have to do this."

"Your Dad just wants to give you a chance to be a kid for a while still."

"Sure. I understand. But I'd like the chance to grow up too and I'm not going to get that chance if some jerk shoots me up."

Good grief. I felt old right then. I feel old right now. Where did our innocence go? Was it stolen or did we give it up ourselves?

I heard Mitch call out, "They're making for the river. A military patrol is already on their tail. I want a head count people, check for wounded."

I didn't hear Mr. Henderson and that worried me. I didn't see him either. They'd already whisked him and the rest of the family back to the ranch. Rand is going to go up there tomorrow to check on them.

For all the bullets flying we really didn't have too many injuries. The few we did were being looked after by Ken. I wasn't allowed to go any place until he'd checked me over as well. I told him the only thing I needed to do was get the boys home. "Rand, she's fine, no blood pressure problems beyond what I would expect under the circumstances. Just get her to keep her feet up for the rest of the day."

I hate it when people talk like I'm not there but Rand started hustling us all toward the wagon. We made sure Paul had collected his mom and didn't need help. We met Brendon over at Clyde's trailer of reloading equipment; the man was frantic because he couldn't find Melly. A moment before we were going to go look for her she stumbled up with Ron Harbinger. "Clyde!"

Oh boy. Clyde had an awful look on his face but it changed to surprise when Ron stepped in close and shook his hand and said something not meant for anyone else's ears. Clyde nodded so hopefully nothing bad is coming from that. Maybe little Roo will get a chance to have two fathers.

 **February 4** **th** – I went to sleep last night before I finished the story but basically all's well that ends well … at least yesterday. We got to the wagon and loaded up.

Mick ran over and slipped the hi-point back to me out of sight of Brendon or Clyde (and Rand or so he thought). Rand gave me a look but didn't fuss. All he said was, "Next time bring the Ruger and the Smith and Wesson. Mick can handle either one. I'll start Austin on the bigger pistols this week." Rand may agree with Ken about me not practicing every day but that doesn't mean he intends to hinder my ability to protect myself (and the baby). This made me feel better than I realized it would. Up to this point all I've been hearing is "you can't do this, that, or the other" and it's been making me … not exactly unhappy about the baby but kind of hemmed in like suddenly the more pregnant I get the less sense people seem to give me credit for having.

It wasn't until we got home that I got a chance to go over the clothes Missy had been able to get for Austin. They aren't anywhere near new but they aren't as wore out as I expected either. And they are pretty good quality. There were a couple of pair of cargo jeans and some decent shirts. I'll have to sew him some boxer shorts which may embarrass us both but better than him going commando. The undershirts are the tank top variety which is ok during summer but he's going to need something a little warmer for a while yet even if the thermometer did hit 75 degrees F today. I'll also need to make him a belt and some suspenders and put a deep hem on the jeans but that is a lot less work than I expected to have to do after looking close at what people were wearing yesterday. Also in the bag was a list of pre-orders and a note that said to make a list of materials I needed and to have Rand bring it to the Shack as soon as he could.

After yesterday I decided my wardrobe needed attention before I went any further on Austin's or started on the pre-orders. I looked through Momma's patterns and found a full skirt. It wasn't long enough so I had to add some paper at the end before I pinned the pattern pieces to the material and cut them out. The material was this heavy cotton twill; it wasn't denim but it was real close.

I'm tired but can't seem to sleep. I know why and it … it is … well, I feel stupid but at the same time I'm … jealous. There. I wrote it down. I do trust Rand. I do. But I can't seem to stop feeling like I feel.

We sat down to eat dinner. I made a venison pot pie and we were almost finished and I was thinking that it was time to bring the sorghum molasses pie to the table when Austin said, "Rand you think that SueLinda and her puppies got to a safe place?"

I couldn't place the name so I asked, "SueLinda?"

"Rand's friend from college."

That was news to me. I looked at Rand and he had a shuttered look in his eyes even as he smiled at Austin and said, "I'm sure she did buddy. Kiri that was a really good meal."

Tell me that doesn't sound like a definite change in topic. I looked at Rand and he knew he'd been caught. "Her name is SueLinda Adcock. Her sorority and my fraternity participated in many of the same Greek activities at UF. She's working on one of the river boats and it was just an accident running into her."

I waited for him to say more … anything … but that was it. The conversation was closed and I could tell he didn't want to talk about it though he tried to act casual and like it was no big deal. Maybe it isn't a big deal but something about how … aw heck, I'm giving it up for the night. Rand wants me to come to bed and I guess I'll just have to forget about it.

 **February 5** **th** – I hate heartburn. Ew. I think dinner was a little too spicy for junior … or juniorette. As for the other stuff from last night, boy do I feel stupid. Or maybe not, there is some reason for me to be worried but not because of Rand. He is mostly embarrassed because he doesn't think the full story reflects on him very well but on the other hand he feels so bad about what he almost did, almost fell for, that he can't seem to keep enough distance from her and in fact strongly dislikes even the mention of her name.

That's the short version. The long version is more complicated. And the only reason I've got it is because of Julia and Cassie. See, it started because I needed more mulch.

Rand went early, on horseback, to check on Mr. Henderson and to see if there was any other news. Mr. Henderson is fine; really cranky, but fine. Everything on the ranch is under heightened security and Mitch is organizing the posses that were combing the rivers for that Corday guy that escaped. Several of his crew were captured by the military but not him. There's a bounty on his head now; he not only tried to kill Mr. Henderson, but he and his crew badly wounded a couple of soldiers during their escape from custody.

Rand came home followed by Brendon and Jonathon as well as the boys. Missy went into labor early this morning and Uncle George basically told them to get lost, that there were too many people under foot. The older guys had some talking to do which miffed the boys off for being excluded. I definitely knew the feeling but I figured that I could get whatever was going on out of Rand sooner or later but the boys didn't see it that way. The only thing I could think to do was pull the girl schtick and say, "Oh thank goodness. I thought they were going to keep you three tied up too. I really need some help getting some pine mulch."

Tommy and Austin fell for it, Mick not so much but he still went along which was good because the other boys follow his lead. We hooked Bud up solo to our little wagon, put the tall sides on and then went up to the loblollies to start gathering pine straw. I guess we had been at it about an hour when Mick came over to where I was and said, "Julia and Cassie are turning in."

Sure enough here they came with Ron Harbinger riding a gray gelding following close behind. He stopped and talked to the boys while Julia and Cassie filled me in on things around the county, including on the health of "Poppy" and Momma O's latest attack of arthritis.

I sucked up my courage and asked, "Did either one of you meet someone named SueLinda yesterday?"

Cassie said to Julia, "I told you he wouldn't tell her."

"Wouldn't tell me what?" I asked getting worried.

Julia gave Cassie a dirty look and said, "Kiri, don't do what I did. SueLinda Adcock is in the past. Forget her. She's nobody."

You can't just say stuff like that without explaining. The facts are SueLinda was a young woman ready and eager to console Rand when he and Julia were having trouble with their long distance relationship when he was a Freshman. She was the spider to his fly for almost a full semester. It took Rand almost as long to figure out that SueLinda was one of those women that liked to make her own notches in her headboard, a female version of that stereotype.

"Nothing happened between them Kiri and Rand was pretty embarrassed by the whole thing. SueLinda was a grad student, a few years older than him. He got ribbed pretty hard by some of his fraternity brothers."

"For falling for her lines or for not taking advantage of what she offered?"

"Does it matter? Look, I nearly ruined things with Ron always whining about things – and people – that happened in both our pasts. I'm asking you for Rand's sake not to make a big deal out of this. Nothing good will come of it."

Cassie put her two cents in by saying, "But I wouldn't turn my back on the woman. If she tried it once … "

Julia said, "Cassie! Don't make things out to be … "

Cassie just rolled her eyes. "Oh for pity sake. Saint Rand isn't likely to fall for it twice. I'm just saying SueLinda may not know that."

Ron picked that moment to come over and ask if they were ready to go. It was like a switch flipped in Julia. I'd never thought of her as a … well as a submissive kind of person but it was all "yes Ron" and "of course Ron" when he was there. Cassie got this defeated look on her face and said, "Sure. Why not? I need to get back to help Abuela anyway."

So that is what Cassie settled on to call Tia Cia. Wow. After they left the boys and I finished filling the wagon and we came back to the house. Tommy and Austin were taking the last cart of pine straw out to the garden and Mick and I were putting the mules back in the corral when Mick says, "If that SueLinda woman was the one I think she is, Rand really doesn't like her Kiri. Tommy and Austin were paying attention to the puppies she was trying to trade away but I could tell that Rand really didn't want to be there and when that woman tried to touch his arm he would move so she couldn't." What do you call that? Independent verification? Whatever, it gave me more to think about.

The Crenshaw clan couldn't stay for lunch because they were already promised to Momma O's but Mick and Tommy lost their mulligrumps when I sent them off with some molasses cookies and some dried fruit for the ride back home after they left from there.

Austin still needs more meat on his bones and I could tell he was pretty well out of steam for a while and so was Woofer who had loved having all three boys for company. Rand saw it too and told him to help him by keeping Woofer out from underfoot while he checked on the pregnant nannies. That gave me a chance to heat up the lunch which was vegetable-venison soup and cornbread.

After lunch they went and worked picking up all of the tree trash and getting it cut to the right lengths and I headed out to the garden to lay the mulch down and to check on what was popping up. The mustard greens will be ready starting tomorrow. I nearly cut some for today but that would have been a little too early. The other thing I'm going to pull tomorrow are some of the radishes.

Dinner was red beans and rice with the other half of the pan of cornbread. After dinner and general clean up Austin practically fell asleep on the sofa until we suggested he might want to take Woofer and "get him to sleep because he has had a long day."

With Austin in bed and everything quiet Rand and I went off to bed a little early too. Having another person in the house has taken a little getting used to if you know what I mean. But he seemed kind of like Woofer gets on occasion; like he has done something he knew he shouldn't have.

"I suppose you don't believe me and you want to hear the full story."

"About what?" I asked, because I really hadn't been thinking about anything in particular.

"About SueLinda," he said with a real stony face.

"No, not really. Cassie and Julia already told me."

"They what?!"

"Shhhhhh. You're going to wake up Austin."

Then in a much more moderate voice Rand spit out, "What did they tell you? I can just hear them both now. Gosh almighty! Don't listen to … "

"Rand. You were young and she is a black widow. Let it go already."

He just stood there with his shirt half off and his mouth hanging open. "They … you … huh?"

"Julia explained and I'm very sorry that I got jealous. I just took a good look at myself yesterday and realized again that you aren't with me because I'm the prettiest girl in the room. I wish you would have told me how stupid I looked with my pants rolled up and those silly socks."

"Stop. I'm confused. You're apologizing to me for being jealous?"

"Yeah. It really was never about you. I trust you. Like I said, I just realized how I've been looking and …"

"You're making my head hurt Kiri. I act as dumb as a stump over a woman that has ten years on me and you're the one that is sorry."

"Oh, she's ten years older than you are? Julia only told me she was in grad school."

"What else did Julia and Cassie say?"

So I told him and he basically confirmed it; but he sure was surprised at how they told it. He was also surprised at Julia's advice and how she admitted that she had almost messed things up with Ron.

"But Rand, it is kind of weird too. Whenever Ron is around she turns really … odd. It reminds of this book we had to read for modern lit called _The Stepford Wives_."

"Hey it's her choice."

"Rand … "

"Look, I know it …yeah, ok, so it is weird but that's none of our business. That's their private lives. I'm not going to tell them how to act and be with one another anymore than I want someone doing that to us."

"You've gotten a few comments huh?"

"Uh … "

"Rand I've heard 'em all. I'm bossy, loud, strange, weird, moody … "

"Don't … even … start. We haven't had this argument in forever and I'm not going to start it again now. Look, about SueLinda. She's … well she was bad news back then but I don't know what she is now. All I do know is that I can't help but be suspicious of her and that I'd rather us not have anything to do with her. I found my brain before she could mark a check by my name in her game book but I'm ashamed to say that it was close. I would have fallen for her if one of her old conquests hadn't warned me in time. Can we just let it go? I'm hoping never to have to see or hear from her again."

So I let it go and we concentrated on each other for a while rather than the past. Before Rand fell to sleep he told me what he and Brendon and Jonathon were talking about. That as much as dinner's Cajun seasoning is what set my stomach on fire. It's a wonder that I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off. There just isn't anything we can really do about it right now. The family is making plans but there is only so much we can do right now.

The winter has been terribly hard for a lot people. In many towns and cities they count the dead daily. Starvation and exposure account for more deaths than the flu did. Bad water or no water and disease account for no small number of dead either. Before spring arrives we may see a lot of strangers in this area from the northern states and they'll be on the lookout for food and other resources. And they'll be desperate enough to simply take what they want.

We still have a little time but not much. Winter still has things pretty well locked down but the south is starting to thaw. I hope not but they think things may go back to as bad as they were during the end of last summer and into the autumn. And that doesn't even include all the bad guys we already have around here. The crackdown on the rivers will push some of the bad guys out into the countryside. We'll wind up with river pirates and land pirates.

Ugh. I'm getting the shivers. I'm going to bed and hope that we'll hear that Missy is OK in the morning. Rand and I have been stepping around that one all day trying not to think of why no one would have come to give us the good news.


	81. Chapter 80

Chapter 80

 **February 12** **th** – It's been a week since I've been able to put pen to paper. A long, hard week. I'm plenty worried. I guess, let's see … yeah, I haven't even written about Missy. The reason we didn't hear last Monday is because it was Tuesday before the baby was born. Missy and the baby are just now finally out of the woods.

Apparently what happened is William Jr. … they'll call him Billy until he is older … turned out to a big baby, a really big baby. Ken had warned both Bill and Missy about the possibility due to her size but they had kept it to themselves. She was in labor over twenty-four hours. If they'd been able they would have done a caesarean before the labor had gotten that far. Both Missy and the baby were in a lot of distress and Ken had to actually use forceps to get the baby the rest of the way out. He was blue and floppy when he finally made it but they got him breathing. I've been over and he sure doesn't have any problem breathing now, I don't think he stops crying except when he is latched onto Missy.

Missy is just off her rocker. She is very independent and suddenly to never be able to get away from the little person she had inside her is a huge learning curve for her. Sometimes all she needs to do is be able to walk away for a few minutes but Jr. starts crying to be fed. Missy is still in bed for the most part because of some sewing up Ken had to do (and no, I don't want to even think about that part of it) and because she is just so tired from the baby wanting to nurse all the time. He's a big boy.

Stress and being really sore is making it hard for Missy to … I don't know, it has to do with making enough milk to keep the baby satisfied and some other stuff I heard Julia and the other women talking about in whispers. I suppose I should be listening but I don't have time to get freaked out about that right now. I'll get freaked when it is my turn and that will be soon enough.

We were both up early Tuesday morning, I hurriedly cut some mustard greens and pulled some radishes, and as soon Rand finished morning chores he rode Hatchet over to his uncle's to find out about Missy. He got there and saw Uncle George crying on the porch and he thought the worst. It was actually just relief, Missy had just finished giving birth about thirty minutes earlier and the baby had finally started crying and was taking its first feeding.

Mrs. Withrow and a couple other ladies were over there cleaning things up and were happy to see the greens; Missy needed the iron. Everyone there was exhausted so Rand helped with their outdoor chores and helped a terrified Brendon to settle down. It's hitting him that this baby stuff is for real. He could lose Alicia though of the three of them she seems to have had the least amount or problems pregnancy wise.

When I asked about how Jonathon was taking it Rand said that he thinks Laurabeth can do anything better than Missy and having a baby shouldn't be any exception. Well, I figure whatever it takes to get you through the day. If that is what he needs to believe so be it, though I hope for his sake he keeps it to himself. Missy may be tired right now but one of these days she's going to get up and then all heck could break loose.

While Rand was gone most of that day I had Austin help me start placing the seedling trees we had potted back in October in the places that I wanted to plant them. I had to do something to keep from chewing my nails off in worry. I guess I can understand why Bill didn't put the info about Missy out over the radio, you never know who might be listening and looking for a weak spot to take advantage of, but it just underlines the problems with communication that we continue to have.

Most of the cedars I was able to save went into a line around the home site. I'm trying to add more of a privacy screen to what we already have. There are plenty of places around here that have cedars on the road side of their fence lines as a sound and privacy barrier so when these grow up they shouldn't look too unusual.

We are taking over the remainder of the 80 acre section next door. We are already using a chunk of it for the cows and to take over the year round pond … which is about twice the size it normally is right now from all the rain we've been having. According to Rand we got nearly ten inches in January and we've already gotten six in February which is two inches more than we should have gotten the whole month. The garden is in a good high and dry area thank goodness or we would have lost some of it. We already lost a small section of the rye in the utility easement from too much standing water but the sink hole is keeping the worst of it drained off.

I had Austin help me to put the agave and then Spanish bayonet around the edge of the pasture since that isn't something that the cows will eat. Rand had already laid out a grid where we could plant more fruit trees in the new area and I got the pots arranged and Rand and Austin have been planting them as time allows. All but a few are now in the ground.

Austin and I were both happy to see Rand come home and to hear that Missy and the baby were doing as well as could be expected. What we didn't know was that two days later Alicia would go into labor early. They had a little boy.

Alicia is very sick. She developed some kind of fever. It was gone in forty-eight hours but the house was upside down. The little boy is … well he is very small and they aren't sure what is going to happen. One day he will seem like he is strong and the next day he seems to be failing, almost gasping for air. They've named him George Randall Crenshaw and we pray every day that he survives.

The never ending rain isn't helping things. Lots of colds and sniffles going around. I ought to know, I've seen it while working in the Shack. That's one of the reasons that I'm so tired.

See with both Bill and Missy out of commission and Alicia and Brendon as well … the guys try but they are so distracted and constantly running to check on their ladies and babies … that has created a real problem. Uncle George and Jonathon and Mick and Tommy are doing what they can but they all seem distracted too. But that still left the Shack unattended and the community needs the Shack.

So Rand and I talked it over with Bill and this is what we have come up with. We get up early, get our animals taken care of and I put food on for Rand and Austin through the day. Pastor Ken comes by and picks me up on his way to check on Missy and Alicia … he's looking rough around the edges again, he needs a helper of his own, this house call stuff isn't what I would call easy. I ride with him, work in the Shack with one of the local men standing guard on the porch and Bill running in and out throughout the day. Rand and Austin show up about mid afternoon, help do a few chores for Uncle George and then I ride home with them where I try and get my own house chores completed.

I don't know how much longer Rand and I can keep this up. We are both exhausted. I don't even know what you want to call what Austin is. Rand just let him sleep this morning, the poor kid just can't keep up with this though he is finally started to put a little more meat on his bones; but none of it is fat.

 **February 15** **th** – Missy and Alicia have been given a clean bill of health though neither one of them is what I would call frisky or one hundred percent back to where they need to be. Billy has gotten better as well and Missy's milk finally came in all the way and he is a much more contented baby now that Missy has gotten the feeding him thing more under control. Georgie … that's what they are call Alicia and Brendon's son … is still frail but with the cool weather mostly gone, and plenty of helping hands to keep an eye on him, Ken expects him to do better as the weeks go by. He was technically a preemie but nothing too radical – somewhere between three and four weeks. His lungs were fully developed, he is just really weenie in size. All of the baby clothes Alicia and Brendon had for him swallowed him up so mostly they just keep him swaddled and I sewed him some fleece booties and caps during lulls at the Shack.

I don't have to work at the Shack anymore and the reason why is pretty fantastic. I mean that in more than one way. It is hard to believe but it is kind of cool at the same time. On Tuesday who should show up on our doorstep but Ram. It wasn't just Ram though; it was Concha, her little boy, and her mother and her new husband and her new husband's seventeen year old son. I had already left for the Shack so poor Rand was stuck filing Ram in on what had happened and getting Ram's story in return.

Things aren't going to so good for the federal government. They really can't afford to keep a huge standing army housed and supplied with all of their needs much less pay them. What they've done is allowed a large number of troops to revert to reserve status; they can be called up at any time but aren't full time solders any longer. Fewer troops took this option than was expected, a lot of them simply have no home to go home to these days, or none that they want to go home to. Some are also counted on their military benefits to feed their immediate, and sometimes extended, family. Ram had been building his options up just in case something like this occurred and he was ready. The only thing he hadn't been able to do yet was create a good home location to work out of.

While south Florida had its appeal it was seeing constant fighting between different ethnic gangs and incursions by foreigners. The military was a big presence down there but in a sense that was dampening his ability to set up his supply pipelines. The interior of central Florida had its own set of problems including transportation of goods and services. He had a lot of contacts around Steinhatchee but that wasn't an area where he wanted to raise a family and have his main holdings. He'd been talking to Mr. Henderson about settling in this area and negotiations were under way but circumstances had speeded up faster than either man had expected.

Word had been relayed to Mr. Henderson through one of his patrols and he and Mitch had come to check out who the migrating family was. Round and around things went and when a potential solution was worked out Mitch rode over to talk to Bill about it. There was a square eighty on the other side of Bill and Missy's place … Bill is no farmer and never will be but uses the acreage he and Missy are on as forage for Uncle George's animals … that has been abandoned for months. The plan is to have Ram and his newly enlarged family move onto that land. There is no house on the land but from what I understand Ram had planned in advance that he might need to build a house on whatever land he finally settled on. Right now they are camping out in very rainy weather but from what I understand everyone is so happy to be out of all the fighting down in Miami that they hardly notice the damp.

While all of this was going on I was working in the Shack without a clue. When Rand came to pick me up – I had been wondering where Bill was and whether I should just lock up early because of the rain that had set in and run all the customers off – he and someone else were backing into the Shack carrying a big crate between them.

"Hey Babe, look who the cat drug in."

"Ram!" I was so surprised. But not near as surprised as Ram was. I thought he was going to choke on his teeth for a second.

"Hermanita! How are you … what?! When did this happen?!" and that was followed by a lot of fast and hot Spanish that I'm not even going to bother writing it down. When he found out how far along I was he got hot all over again. As soon as he calmed down enough for me to get a word in edgewise I told him to get over it since Rand and I had already had enough fits over things for all of us combined and it was time just to go forward.

"Are you sure you are alright little sister? I mean, you are so small and … and … there are no … no … doctors … and …"

"Ram, I'm warning you, my nerves aren't going to put up with any more smothering than I'm already getting."

"Already getting? Ah, so Rand has things well in hand hmm?"

What a chauvinist pig. But somehow he'd grown into even more of a big brother even with him not being around. That's when it was my turn to be surprised as I had all the details filled in. Ram had brought the whole family with him and I was reintroduced to Concha who introduced me to her little boy who was asleep, to her mother who's name was Marta. Marta was a handsome woman in her late forties and she introduced me to her new husband Rubio (also named Diaz but no relation to Ram) and his teenage son Anthony. Uncle George, Bill, Brendon, Clyde, Jonathon and several of the other neighborhood men showed up right after that and we got the Shack closed down for the night and got Diaz families set up in tents and tarps on a piece of clear land between the Shack and Uncle George's place.

I couldn't stay any longer, Rand needed to get home and he said so did I. I thought he was picking up Ram's bad habits until we actually did get home and I saw what Ram had brought us.

Rand pulled back a tarp from off of some cardboard cases and mesh bags he had locked up in the barn and I couldn't believe what I was seeing; oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, limes, loquats, and even some lemons … I was in citrus overload. I realized real quick it was going to be more than we could eat fresh.

"Babe, whatever you can do to preserve this you better try and make it last. Ram said this may very well be the end of these types of gifts for a while, especially the citrus. The feds have taken over most of the remaining citrus groves to try and prevent scurvy in the troops and for special WIC programs around the country.

"Scurvy? Isn't that something pirates get?"

When Rand was finished laughing at me – and I guess it was kind of stupid, I wasn't really thinking when I asked the question because I was busy counting the crates and bags and imagining what I could do with their contents – he told me that scurvy was something sailors used to get yes but it was also a bad problem for everyone that didn't get enough Vitamin C in their diet. It's just that all I could think of when he said scurvy was a pirate waving his cutlass around shouting, "Avast ye scurvy dogs!" Oh well, maybe my brains are leaking out of my ears. I accidentally put salt in the tea yesterday too. Luckily it was my own small pot of mint tea and I don't intend on telling anyone else about it.

I was so tired that night that I went to sleep before Rand did which was a rarity. He said he was in the middle of telling me some of the stuff that Ram had been sharing and he looked over and I was curled up on the end of the sofa with my head tucked into the crook of my arm. I don't even remember going to bed.

Yesterday I went back to the Shack only to find out that Bill, Ram, and Rubio had been making arrangements. Bill and Ram had been planning to go into business together in some form or another all along. They'd been conducting some salvaging operations and using Mr. Henderson's connections to get things back and forth … for a cut of the profit of course. Ram hadn't been able to do much up to this point because he had to be careful in his position on the Colonel's staff but now that he was out he intended on really going to town.

How they are going to arrange things is that Missy and Concha would help Bill with the storefront. Marta and Rubio – both of whom grew up on small working farms in rural south Florida – would manage the eighty acres, growing food for the family as well as for trading at the swap meets and at the Shack. Ram is going to be the traveler. He'll hunt up salvage himself or hook up with people to make trades with. Anthony will ride with him – which I think is going to be a relief to Uncle George because Charlene took one look at Anthony and developed an instantaneous crush on him according to Rand.

I have to admit I was feeling a little left out of all their plans until Rand acted like he was relieved no one expected us to be heavyweight enough to play in their game. They didn't think less of us but Rand said it was nice to know that we still had a few secrets. After I took the time to think it through I suppose he is right. And besides, I like our privacy and like that we can call our time our own for the most part. I was going a little bonkers having to be nice to all those people that came and went at the Shack on those days I was there. Having to make conversation with all the family also made me itch. I like them, but at arms length most of the time. I like it best when it is just Rand and I … and Austin.

Austin seems content for it to be just us as well as long as he can see either Rand or I (and Woofer naturally). He enjoys being with Mick and Tommy but he doesn't get lonesome when they aren't around either. I think the way he was forced to grow up made him a loner; not as bad as me but he learned to be content with whatever he had at any given moment and isn't upset too much if it isn't there the next.

Today I've been canning citrus. Or actually what I've been doing is going through all of our food storage and what a job that has been. First I found a bunch of dried apricots that I had to do something with so I decided to try and experiment and it really paid off.

I rehydrated enough of the dried apricots so that I wound up with four cups once I chopped them up. Then I grated the rind off of an orange and then seeded the orange and chopped the pulp up. I put the apricots and orange through a food mill together then added two tablespoons of lemon juice to the resulting mess and then three and a half cups of sugar to that. I mixed it well and then put it in a pot and cooked it until the pulp was thick as apple butter. I ladled it into prepared jars and got about three half-pints to process. I had maybe half a ladle that wouldn't fit in the jars which I gave to Rand and Austin to put on their biscuits at lunch.

I also made some lemon marmalade, lime marmalade, orange marmalade, tangerine butter, orange sections, grapefruit sections, tangerine sections, and loquat preserves. I juiced and canned all the juice I could, especially the lemon juice. I also preserved some lemons and limes using a recipe I found in Momma's files.

You take as many lemons or limes as you wish to preserve and stud each with 6 cloves. Pierce the skins with a skewer to save your thumbs because I can guarantee you that poking those little cloves in my hand hurts. Place the clove-studded fruit in a glass jar and cover completely with oil or white vinegar. You have to put this someplace where it will stay cool so I stuck it in the cabinet where the hand pump is. They are supposed to be ready in 3 to 4 weeks; I didn't do many just in case it was a flop.

I didn't let anything go to waste, or not much anyway. I've got all the citrus seeds that didn't get cut saved and even though Rand thinks it is a waste of time I'm going to try and sprout my own citrus fruit. If they do sprout – and even I admit that is a big if – I'll need to grow them in pots and then build a large greenhouse to keep them in during the coldest months. Wouldn't it be something though if in a few years we had a tropical garden conservatory or something like that.

Some of the peel I grated and dried to refill my spice bottles that I empty faster than I can find a substitute for. I can make my own lemon pepper seasoning or orange tea.

And the peel I didn't grate I candied. You take the peel off of any kind of citrus you have, just make sure you cut away any of the white pith. Make sure it is washed also; no one wants to eat sand or dirt in their candy. The best sections are a quarter inch wide, almost like a string of peel. Put all of your peel in a pot and cover with water, cover it, and bring to a boil for thirty minutes. Drain this water (I used it to make my tea with) and then to the peel left in the pan add one box of fruit flavored gelatin (six ounce size), two cups of water, one cinnamon stick, and ten whole cloves. You are going to bring all of that to a boil, put a lid on it, and then simmer it for fifty minutes or until most of the syrup has been absorbed by the peel. You have to stir this a lot, especially towards the end, to keep it from sticking.

Then you take the peel out of the pan with tongs and roll it all in about two cups of sugar. You want each strip to be heavily coated with sugar. Cool the strips on and then store in an air tight container. I did three batches of this; the first with orange jello, the next with lemon jello, and the last with lime jello. I suppose I could have done something different like a strawberry or grape jello but I decided to go the traditional route.

Since Rand had to go back over to help Uncle George again I asked him to ask Ram if I could have any of the peel and seeds he didn't want. Marta and Concha sent me a bunch and I'm sitting here waiting for the last batch to dry so that I can put it away and go to bed.

I found weevils in one tin of pasta shells but I was lucky that was all. By the end of March I think we'll have used up all of the commercially packaged foods that we got from salvaging except for stuff like boxes of Jell-O, pudding mixes, and odds and ends like that. I think I've pieced things out just about as far as I can. Of course I still have stuff from Momma and Daddy's stuff and the stuff that Aunt Wilma had stashed in the box springs but even that is getting used up. I really need to increase the chicken flock this year if I can. I'd like to be able to have a chicken dinner every so many Sundays and we definitely need to have more eggs. Warmer and more regular milkings has brought the milk production back up but Austin drinks a lot of it and for that matter so do I. It also is getting used up making butter and cheese.

Looks like I don't have time for another cup of tea after all. The candied citrus peel is dry and as soon as I put it up I'm going to bed. Even with my slippers on my feet are cold.

 **February 16** **th** – Couldn't be helped, I had to harvest the spinach, turnips and the first of the lettuce in the rain today.

Rand is really upset. It looks like we may have lost a quarter of the rye harvest to this rain. The field where it was planted is flooding on one corner. He's dug a trench to try and get the water to drain into the sink hole faster but the sink hole itself is nearly full.

The pond where the cows graze spread even more during the night. Rand had to clean the cows off when he brought them in. Taz and company enjoyed some buckets of water being poured on them and a good rub down as well. Rand wound up putting a ring through Taz's snout and puts a leading string on him when he gets testy. Won't have to move them too much longer; Rand almost has their own little barn all finished. Next he needs to make one for the goats, especially now that the nannies have their babies. We now have Ol' Billy, the two nannies, and three kids. The kids are nearly as feisty as Ol' Billy and worse than Fraidy as far about getting tangled up in my feet. I think they like me because they know when I bring stuff out to their mommas that they'll stand still long enough for them to suckle until they are satisfied, usually the nannies make the kids run after what they want.

The garden is looking good despite all the rain. We do need a little sun but so far so good. I'm just tired of wet feet so I imagine some of the plants are too. Even though it isn't too cold outside anymore we have to keep a fire going someplace in the house to drive off the damp.

 **February 17** **th** – Doggone this rain. No swap meet today because of it. I can't remember the last time I saw the sun for more than just a few minutes.

 **February 18** **th** – We've had to start moving wood into the barn and onto the porch so we have some dry to burn. No church today but we still heard the news. Ram came over and wanted to know if he could borrow the donkeys that he'd left here last time. They have started clearing the land for the house but it is mostly just scrub in there and they just want to load it on the donkeys and take it out to the burn pile they've started.

Rand and I couldn't see why not and it meant that we wouldn't have to feed them for a couple of weeks while Ram had them.

"I like what you've done to the place. One of these days we'll have one too. Maybe not a brick house but something nice that will fit the family."

"Is it OK? I mean living with Concha's mother and her husband?"

"Oh sure. When I wasn't in foster care I lived with my abuela and it was her and three of my uncles and their families. All under one roof. There were two bedrooms for all of us kids to split; one for the girls and one for the boys. My two married uncles had their own bedrooms and the babies slept with the parents and my unmarried uncle slept on the lanai unless it rained or was too hot or cold and then help slept on the sofa. Abuela had the small bedroom all to herself. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. Concha didn't have it quite so tough growing up but Marta is a good woman and I like Rubio. He's even tempered, we get along. Anthony is a good kid, a little too serious, but he's life hasn't been easy. He's actually Rubio's grandson but it's not really talked about if you get my meaning. His momma was a wild one and then ran off. The state wasn't helping so Rubio and his first wife just adopted him to keep him from going to the biological father's family."

"Ram I didn't mean to get into your business."

"Hey, no problem chica. It was just easier to tell it all up front than playing the twenty questions you hate so much. So, when is this baby supposed to get here. I hear from Rand's family it was a big surprise."

"They tell me the middle of July but who knows. And yeah, big surprise."

"And the boy? The one out helping Rand in the barn?"

"That's Austin. I was … I had a …"

"Yeah, the blood pressure thing. George said it was bad."

"Bad enough but no problems since and I wish people would stop spreading my business all over the place."

Ram laughed, "Chica that's never going to stop happening. You are too interesting. But really … no more problems."

"Really. No more problems."

"And you two have everything you need?"

"Ram we're fine."

"Yeah, yeah. I know you have … look, I didn't even think … Rand is not angry that we did not include him in the … "

Rand came in and said, "Don't sweat it Ram. I'm no shop keeper. I wouldn't mind being let in on some deals but … "

"That's a sure thing. Dios mio, it wasn't until I heard how your family talked – like you were just sitting out here in the woods with nothing – that I thought that maybe I was wrong. Don't they know how much you have and how far you've come?"

I said kind of sarcastically, "Family can be blind like that."

"Hmmm. Maybe. Or maybe they are … never mind. It's none of my business and from the look on your face Rand the less said about it the better. I wouldn't have made it as long as I did in the position I was in if I couldn't keep my mouth shut. But they won't be blind for long my friend. Once their weather lets up people will be begging you to come help them put in their gardens … I know Rubio wants to talk to you himself."

It wasn't long after that Ram left with the donkey's on leading strings behind him … and a big gun across his saddle. I asked Rand, "Should he be out by himself? When I was at the Shack I heard all kinds of stories."

"He'll be fine Babe. Hoss is going to meet him up at the county road and ride with him. It's his day to go visit his family over there. And speaking of news, we may have to go without the radio tonight. I don't think we've had enough sun to replenish the batteries. Bill is looking for a couple more so we can have a larger bank of them but those deep cell batteries are getting hard to come by. I hope none of the ones we have go bad."

"Don't even think it. The only thing worse than hearing some of the stuff we've heard would be to be left wondering what is going on."

Rand grunted in agreement and kept fiddling with the radio, trying to see if there was anything to pick up. Mostly all we heard about is the flooding of the rivers. The river has spread out and boats are getting caught on hidden snags that used to be part of the river banks. With the river spreading the current has slowed down so even those willing to be on the river in this area are having a hard time.

Heard a woman in north Georgia claim to have seen several caravans of people heading south. Most of them look pretty pathetic but she guessed that it wouldn't take much to rile them up if there was something they were looking for.

The Caribbean is boiling over again as many of those island nations don't have the natural resources to support even their shrunken populations. South Florida is definitely having problems but the military has reverted to zero tolerance down there and rumors on the airwaves say that every night sounds like a battle. You'd think eventually they'd run out of bullets but that seems to be the only thing they can find in sufficient amounts. They say the battles are over resources like food, fuel, and medicine but it seems to me that if they put as much energy into creating things as they did into destroying them there wouldn't be the shortage that they have right now.

 **February 19** **th** – It's official, I am half way through this whole having a baby thing. Austin went to bed early tonight; he's got a cold or the beginnings of one. If it gets any worse I'll dose him with something, depends on where the cold tries to settle … his head, his throat, or his chest. After Austin fell asleep Rand and I got to talking and he pulled out the booklet. Or maybe I should call it The Booklet the way he treats that thing. The pages are dog eared even.

Last night as we lay in bed I could say for absolutely sure that I felt the baby moving. It was just so weird. I'm not even sure I could explain how it felt. Rand wants to feel the baby move so bad. I think it will be a little while yet before he can but he has made me promise to tell him every time I feel the baby move. It tickled me because he was so serious. It's a little bizarre because sometimes he makes me feel like a science experiment and other times he makes me feel like I'm some treasure he is responsible for. The booklet says the baby is now about ten inches long and weighs about the same in ounces. I guess … I guess … well suddenly the baby is a lot more real than it was before.

 **February 22** **nd** – Just when I start to think of my baby as a real live person something … we've lost so much. Why do some people think that life is so cheap?

Tuesday was a beautiful spring day. The rain had finally let up but there was still a lot of flooding all over the place; the rivers were high, the ponds flooded, the ditches full, the potholes still muddy.

I suppose we should have realized that all the flooding would push them out of their normal routes, make them desperate … or bold, depending on how you looked at it.

I thought I was ready to deal with this. I just can't.


	82. Chapter 81

Chapter 81

 **February 24** **th** – I'm dreading tomorrow. Just dreading it. I don't know how ready I am for this. There's a church service and it is going to be a community wide memorial service. So many, especially now that there has been time to check all of the homes along the river. Tuesday was a beautiful day to end so tragically for so many of us. Us. What a word. So many "us"'s have been torn apart.

Rand, Austin, and I were enjoying the day by sitting on the porch letting a lunch of fried rice and egg rolls settle. I had cut the first bunch of bok choy just that morning and couldn't wait to use it. Suddenly Rand cocked his head which told me I needed to focus on some sounds beyond Austin talking about Woofer's latest adventure. I had to hold my hand up so I could hear what had caught Rand's attention.

It was gun shots. Not an unusual sound with so many people having to feed their family by hunting; however, it was the pattern and frequency that was unusual … and the fact that we were hearing it from at least two different directions.

Rand ran inside and turned the radio on that Bill had gotten for him with shares from the stuff I had taken at the last swap meet. He tuned it to the frequency that he knew Henderson's men used and brought it out to the porch. As soon as he heard what was going on we began to put the animals in the barn.

"Babe, I want you and Austin to stay in the house. Take Woofer in with you. Fraidy is in the loft so don't worry about her. I'm going to get in the hunting blind I built up in that old oak. I don't want you to come out for any reason … I mean it, for no reason."

No, I was not happy but what he was doing made the most sense. Before we locked ourselves in we agreed that today was a good as day as any to show Austin the dormer room and that's what I spent the next little while doing and explaining that this was something else, just like the pantry and storage space in the barn, that was ours to know about and no one else's. Austin is a good kid. The last few days have been very trying on all of us but not because he has given us any trouble. Rand said that Austin said as bad as things have been he still feels safer with us than he has since his step-brother had given him to the blue helmets.

The day was nerve wracking. Rand came back to the house a couple of times and then we locked down for the night. By morning it was all over and we never saw even a single shot on our road. But it didn't take a bullet to wound our spirits.

Rand hadn't really slept during the night. I tried to stay up with him but I just couldn't; my body refused to obey. We were up for good about three thirty in the morning and he was packed and ready to hit the road when dawn was still just a hope on the horizon. Hatchet was saddled and the animals taken care of earlier than usual. I was standing outside watching him lead hatchet around the screen when we heard another horse coming at a full run.

Rand nearly shot but the rider was small and leaning over the neck of the animal barely able to hang on. Rand got the animal under control shut in time to keep Tommy from being thrown. He slid down to the ground in a heap. Between sobs we made out, "We need help. You gotta come, you just gotta. They're all … "

Rand picked him up and carried him to the porch and then into the house, into the kitchen. In the light of the lamp we saw it; the blood. None of it was his but by the time we got the bare bones of the story we still didn't know for sure who it belonged to. Life changes so quickly, sometimes it even ends before it begins.

Laurabeth was the first attacked and she is still the worst off. Or maybe it was Jonathon, Tommy didn't know for sure. Jonathon had left right after breakfast to hook up with a cousin, he was trading work for the use of some tool or other, what it was no longer important. Everyone in and around the house were busy doing whatever the day called for and then suddenly Laurabeth screamed followed by the booming of a gun.

Tommy isn't sure of anything after that except that they were far outnumbered. Raiders were trying to take the animals … and in broad daylight. That's bold … or desperate … or maybe both. They also attacked the Shack and most of the other occupied dwellings on their road which is why it took a while to organize mutual aid for the neighbors; there wasn't a house that didn't have some kind of injury. At the same time River Road was being hit and hit hard. Over there it wasn't individual hits on homesteads so much as they threw fire bombs in houses and barns creating complete confusion. As people ran out to take care of the fires they were ambushed. The pirates turned land raiders were smart enough to avoid the Henderson Ranch and the military compound.

It's been days and we still don't have a good timeline of events. Maybe that will come later. We've been too busy tending to the injured, burying the dead, and holding the hands of the grieving.

The injury to Laurabeth wasn't life threatening, not then. What came later is what sent her over the edge. Brendon is hurt. Alicia and Missy are all right but in no condition to try and manage the household they have been left with, especially not with two infants, both needy; Ken has ordered them to bed as much as possible simply because he is worried they are still within the risk zone of a post-birth hemorrhage.

Uncle George is stoic. There isn't much else to call it right now. Brendon and Mick are both hurt, Mick worse but not by much. Mostly they are recovering from blood loss as it was a while until their wounds could be attended to beyond a superficial bandage. Charlene and Janet are both shook up badly. Charlene had to escape a couple of men … you can imagine what they were after. Anthony is the one that saved her; he got injured in the process and it will be some time before he is able to go on a road trip with Ram. Janet, after initially looking her frailty was going to be the end of her, has found strength from someplace and has been an unbelievable help in tending to the wounded of which there are still way too many.

Ram and Bill left a yard full of dead raiders that tried to attack the Shack. Concha, Marta, and Rubio have been welcomed into the community with open arms after they came to the aid of many of the community that had been standing in the Shack's yard when it was hit. Rubio, fortunately or unfortunately, was an old hand at street fighting having survived the mean streets of Little Havana and Little Haiti during the post-4th wave period when you did what you had to to feed and protect those under your care. I heard stories that are hard to believe but which Bill said was true how he took on gun armed raiders with only a large knife. More than half a dozen were found nearly decapitated.

I believe that Clyde and Melly may finally have gotten over whatever was holding them back. One of the few good things that has come out of this nightmare. Clyde nearly tore one of the raiders to pieces with his bare hands when he threw Roo against the side of the house. The little boy practically bounced off. His little arm is broken and Ken thinks his kidneys may be bruised as well. After getting Melly and Roo to a reasonable amount of safety Clyde took off and along with Ram, and Rubio cleaned up the remaining raiders around their immediate farmsteads. Bill handled the radio and tried to coordinate some type of response with Henderson and with the military who were split between River Road and all the clean up between there and the Crenshaws.

Mrs. Withrow's little house and the big house have both sustained quite a bit of damage. Rand and I finally convinced her to come home with us last night just until we could get her windows fixed and some working shutters built that she could manage by herself. She may not be by herself for long though. There is a special needs boy who lost the aunt and uncle he had been living with; he's fifteen and strong as an ox and loves Mrs. Withrow to death. I guess even calling him special needs isn't the right thing, his IQ is a little low but only noticeable if you saw him in an academic setting. He'll always need someone to help take care of him but only because he is more interested in other people than himself.

I haven't named everyone in the family, that part of it is tied up with what happened over on River Road.

The raiders hit nearly every place over there at the same time. Lots of fire damage, lots of death by ambush as people rushed out to save their animals and their buildings. Mr. Winston and Aunt Buzzy died instantly, cut down by the cowards that had thrown the fire bombs. Then one was thrown into the main house. Julia and the baby were upstairs.

Why does this have to be so hard?! Something just isn't right that things like this can happen. Why did God let this happen?! I just don't understand.

Ron had been out in their far woods hunting some dinner when he saw the smoke, by the time he made it home the barn and the house were raging infernos. He saw his aunt and his father in law dead of gunshots and he ran around looking for Julia and the baby. And he found them when he heard a puny little cry coming from behind the old fruit house. He slowed down as he noticed a trail of blood from the back yard porch to the small structure.

He turned the corner and there was Julia and his son. She was clinging to life just long enough to tell the story and to make sure that someone would come for the baby. The fire had traveled up the old wooden structure in moments, preventing Julia from being able to escape down the stairs. She'd thrown some of the baby's things and a few other odds and ends out the window and then climbed out onto the verandah roof in an attempt to get away from the fire and jump down without hurting the baby. She made it to the edge when a raider had stepped out and shot her in the leg. The roof was just thin sheet metal and when she fell, one of the trusses broke and she fell and a burning beam fell on her legs. She was able to save the baby and crawl to safety. She died in Ron's arms of shock and whatever other damage she had sustained from the bullet and the fall. But mostly from the fire. I overheard Ken telling Rand and Uncle George that she'd been burned clear down to the bone on one leg and he doesn't even know how she got as far as she did.

Ron is a mess. Close to being certifiable from grief and shock. At one point Ken even suggested it might help to get him drunk but Ron won't go near the stuff. He says never again, everything that has happened is payment for his past sins; that it is his fault that his family was killed and his farm burned to nothing. But for a little while after Julia died he still had enough left to think about getting the baby to Ken to make sure he wasn't hurt. The military were coming in by that time after the raiders, but there were no medics there at that time. He was able to reason out that the baby would need to be fed and the only one that could do that was a woman that was already feeding a baby. He thought of the Crenshaws and after gathering up some of the baby's things he started walking that direction as his own grey had run off.

About a mile after crossing some fields he saw a horse hung up in some bushes. It's sides had been leathered and the reins hung to the ground. The saddle was cockeyed as well. The poor thing was too tired to do much more than skip to the side a little as Ron approached it. Then he recognized the horse. He'd traded it to …

Jonathon is dead. Somewhere between the farm and his cousin's place he was shot once with a large gauge shotgun. Death would have been near instant but when his body fell from the saddle, one leg hung up and his body was drug … a long ways. There wasn't much … forget it, this isn't a memory I want to save anyway. Whoever reads this sometime a million years from now will just have to use whatever passes for an imagination then.

It was bad, so bad even in his state Ron puked. It was the sound of his being sick and the baby crying that brought him to the notice of one Henderson's patrols. Ron wasn't the only one that got sick. Mitch was called and a wagon was sent out. Jonathon's remains were gathered and put in a long weapon crate so that the lid could be closed.

That is what sent Laurabeth over the edge. She'd been asking for Jonathon and was sure that despite everything he was safe. She dozed, recovering from her initial wound but must have woken up and heard the men quietly talking out in the yard. Somehow she made it downstairs and out to the wagon in the dark. Ron saw her and grabbed her just in time, all she saw was some bloody and tattered shirt material but that was enough. She started keening and …

During the night the shock – both physical and emotional – caused her to go into premature labor. The baby was small, smaller than even Ken thought it should be given when her due date was. The baby never even breathed once. Rand told me crying that it's possible the baby was already dead before Laurabeth went into labor but no one is to know that. Only Uncle George, Ken, Rand, and now I do and we'll take it to our graves. There is no need for Laurabeth to wonder about something like that when she is already as over the edge as she is.

Over a hundred people in the community are dead and that doesn't count any raiders. No one knows for sure how many raiders were killed. At least forty but maybe more. Whole families were put into the same grave. All the graves were marked as best they could. Many new graves were opened in old church graveyards but just as many took place in back yards and fields. The bodies of the raiders were burned in a large pit; when the ashes cool they'll be used to fertilize a community garden planned in memorial of the innocents who died.

We've been every day from sun up, leaving just in time to get home before sundown, trying to help people as best we can. Gardens need to be replanted. Houses need to be repaired. Meals need to be cooked. Animals need to be tended.

Most of Ron's animals survived and they've been brought over to Uncle George's. His feed silo suffered only minor damage and all of it has been combined with Uncle George's for the time being. No one is quite sure what to do about Ron. See, a strange thing happened.

Last night Laurabeth heard baby Stevie … everyone calls Ron's son by his middle name … crying. For a little while she thought it was her baby, she alternated periods of being lucid with periods of fantasy. Apparently whatever happened to ultimately cause Laurabeth's baby to die, she had enough hormones in her system that the baby's cries caused her milk to come in. She'd watched Missy and Alicia enough to know what needed to be done.

Missy was horrified when she went to get the baby and found Laurabeth feeding him but Marta who had been there helping said to leave her alone. She said it would be good for her body, help her uterus recover faster and to stop some of the bleeding, and it might help her mind as well. The only thing is that Laurabeth won't let the baby out of her sight. Most of the time she knows that Stevie isn't her baby but sometimes she doesn't.

Everyone has been waiting for Ron to say something but the only thing he does is a few times a day he goes up to the room where Laurabeth is and sits and rocks the baby while Laurabeth sleeps. He hardly sleeps himself. The only time he is still is when he is rocking Stevie; otherwise he is working, doing anything that requires all of his physical strength and attention.

I've heard the whispers. They're calling him cold – no one has seen him cry – or crazy; or worse they say he is both. I even heard that Lucretia woman, now a widow for the second time; that he got what he was coming to him after the hellion he'd been as a kid and young man. I walked from around a trough being used for laundry and smacked her across the face with a heavy, wet dirty diaper. I haven't seen her around since and other folks have learned to step lightly when I'm around and the subject of family comes up.

I could, as easily as any of them, spend time saying Ron got what was coming to him. I'm hardly likely to forget the welcome they gave me when I was still new. But the problem is, I've walked in his shoes. I've lost everything – home and family – and been left in that twilight where grief doesn't ever seem like it is going to end, in that place where the pain of never ending grief is more comforting than the possibility that it might one day end. There's nothing I can say to him, not yet anyway. There aren't any words that will make this better. But at least he has finally been able to cry.

Rand started watching me like a hawk. He'd heard about what I had done to Lucretia. I guess he figured I was just full up and that it was getting a bit much for me to handle. Ken was always watching as well. I couldn't go near Laurabeth because the one time I tried she took one look at my big belly and started screaming at me to get out. It hurt but I can live with that. I said some pretty nasty things when my family died to people who didn't deserve it. I know that isn't Laurabeth talking but the pain.

I did manage to slip their leash twice. The first time was when I went snooping through the few things that Julia had managed to throw out the window and Ron had salvaged from the yard. That sounds awful but I had a purpose. The second time was when I basically cornered Ron in one of Uncle George's small hay barns.

I handed Ron the one thing that I had taken out of the pathetic bundle of things left from his home. "Ron, don't believe anyone who tells you this is going to be easy or that it will ever go away. They're smoking dope. Don't let anyone tell you that this is all your fault either. Sometimes bad things happen and there are so many layers of reasons that we just aren't capable of understanding it all the way. God doesn't do things to pay us back, he does things to bring us back."

When I was sure I had his attention I continued, "I didn't let anything help me for a long while. I forgot that the people I lost loved me, loved me enough that they wouldn't have wanted me to be miserable, not even for their sake." Then I handed him Julia's Bible. "Out of all of the things she could have picked to save, Julia took the time to put this in with the baby's things. There are some verses underlined in there, strange that the note beside the verses is in your handwriting and not hers. You know which ones I'm talking about?"

Ron's voice was rusty but he finally answered, "Yeah. It's those in I Thessalonians. I remember them from her mother's funeral. She was crying and crying and crying. I didn't know what else to do. At first nothing seemed to help and then … she read those verses at least once a day. Seemed like they were the only thing that would chirk her back up when she got in one of her moods. I never did understand it, I was just glad it worked."

"Stop wondering why for a while … about everything. Just take what comfort those verses offer and let the rest wait a while."

As I left I heard him sit down and flip some pages and then before I was too much further I heard the kind of painful cries that only a grown man can make.

 **February 25** **th** – The services were as bad as I imagined they were going to be, at least for me. Other people seemed to find them comforting or cathartic or something. The thing that was different about this funeral was that there wasn't a single person there that could look at someone else and say, "But you don't know what I've been through. You don't understand!"

Because we all did. The flu, bandits, raiders, hunger, disease, pain, suffering, grief unimagined … we'd all been there, every one of us.

I was going to go back tomorrow and help at the Crenshaws, help with the garden that needs tending and putting the harvested food up. But it looks like I'm not. Uncle George came to him and asked that I not come around for a while. Apparently Laurabeth said some pretty awful things last night. I think Uncle George is just trying to protect his daughter, maybe both of us, from any more hurt. Rand was furious but I told him not to be and he's finally calmed down. I try to put myself in Laurabeth's shoes and it hurts so much I nearly went into hysterics myself.

 **February 26** **th** – How do you find normal after what we've been through? Rand says he's going to give it one more day and then if Laurabeth keeps saying nasty things that he'll just stay home from there on out, or at least stay away from the house for a while.

I also got in a bit of hot water with Rand about what I said to Ron. "How did you know he wasn't going to go crazy and hurt you? You saw the way he was acting? You know what he is like?"

"I know what he used to be like. But to me he's been changed longer than he was the way he used to be. I didn't grow up knowing him Rand. When I look at Ron … he reminds me too much of the person I used to see in my mirror every day."

That brought Rand up sharp. He sucked on his teeth for a while, obviously not wanting to let go of being upset but he finally said, "OK, I can see your point. But, please see mine too. I never would have thought Laurabeth could say the things she's said to me the last few days. The only time she acts half way like her old self is when she is holding that baby."

"That baby has a name. It's Stevie. And none of this is that baby's fault. I know you did your best to forgive Julia for what she did to you but you can't be holding that against the baby?"

He sighed and said, "No. No I'm not. I'm sorry if you or anyone else thinks that. This whole situation … God!" He pulled his hair like it would hurt less than what was going through his head. "You want to know what I see when I look at Ron? Me. That's what I see. I could have been him. I look at Laurabeth and I see you. I look at Stevie and I see Austin or our baby. I feel so bad … I just feel so bad … "

And then I realized Rand hadn't taken the time to grieve and it was a while before either one of us could get up off the barn floor. Austin stood there for a while with his eyes shuttered and scared until Rand looked up and opened his arm and the kid ran over and crawled into our hug.

Maybe I am too young to be a wife, a mother … maybe young isn't the only thing I'm too much of. But God put me here and I am a wife and a mother and I'm going to protect this the only way I know how … by giving it absolutely everything I have and then some. There may be people out there planning on trying to take it from me, from us, but they are going to have a fight on their hands. And it's a fight I plan on winning, even if I have to fight dirty.


	83. Chapter 82

Chapter 82

 **February 27** **th** – True to his word, Rand won't be going over to the Crenshaw farm for a while. It's just too hard on him. He'll go to the Shack or he'll mow or plow to help his uncle out, but he won't go to the house so long as Laurabeth is like she is.

Rand said she isn't making much sense. For some reason she feels threatened by Rand and I, like we will take Stevie from her. Rand said she slapped Charlene when Charlene innocently reminded Laurabeth that Stevie wasn't hers to begin with. Everyone was shocked, especially Laurabeth. I remember those moments, when you do something and then you begin to wonder if maybe other people aren't right and you are about three fries short of a happy meal.

And everyone became even more shocked when Ron picked Stevie up and quietly walked out of the house with him. Laurabeth got hysterical and Uncle George went out after Ron and Rand said he could hear him trying to persuade Ron to bring the baby back to Laurabeth and that he'd be responsible for things.

"Babe, I was really surprised by Ron. It didn't sound like the same guy I had known all these years; the old guy would have either made it all about him or throw a general hissy and make things worse, not stay calm and take his boy to safety. It gets even stranger. He told Uncle George that he'd bring Stevie back to Laurabeth once she calmed down but that Laurabeth had to be responsible and held accountable for her own actions. Stevie wasn't a calf or chick, he was his son and no matter how much he didn't want to hurt Laurabeth and how much Stevie might need her as a wet nurse, if Laurabeth couldn't control herself then Ron said he'd have to find some other way to take care of his son. He told Uncle George that letting her get away with acting that way with no consequences wasn't the way to help her."

"What did Uncle George say to that?"

"What could he say? He knows that Laurabeth isn't right."

"Did you tell him you weren't coming back to the house?"

"Not in so many words. I told him I'll be back tomorrow to re-plow that field behind the back ten but that I was going to get there by cutting across Clyde's piece."

"And?"

"And what? He looked at me and nodded. Told me he'd be out there mid-morning to bring me some water." Rand just shook his head, "Uncle George never played favorites but Laurabeth was always his girl. She was the good student, sweet, biddable, the whole nine yards. He even approved and liked Jonathon; counted on him being the balance for Brendon's brashness. I feel bad for Laurabeth, we all do, but I'm worried that one of these days this is all going to be too much for Uncle George; he isn't old, but he isn't as young as he used to be either."

Rand brought me a note from Concha as well.

 _Hermanita, Ramiro says to tell you that he knows you, and that the wheels must be turning in your head. He says if you think of some way he can help you must let him know. Mamma and Rubio said to count on them as well. And Missy says to tell you that she and Alicia do not share Laurabeth's mania. If you need anything, their doors are always open. Senora Withrow sends her love as well. Concha_

I admit it, I'm relieved. It also makes it easier to deal with the things Laurabeth said knowing that other people understand that she is going through a really bad time; gives me hope that maybe Laurabeth will re-think the way she feels and the family gets fixed some of the hurt that has happened.

Rand has agreed to take Austin with him when he goes to the Crenshaw farm so that Tommy … and Mick though he's not able to do much … have some help in those everyday chores the boys are responsible for over there. In return Rand made me promise to stay around the home site and to lock the doors up tight when I was inside and not to lift anything heavy, blah, blah, blah. I agreed though it stuck in my craw to do it; I know showing as much as I do now only makes Rand feel guilty about not being there for me all the time; he is, just not there in person.

The peace and alone time has actually been helping me get my head back on straight. Two weeks of too many people and it's no wonder Rand and Ken were waiting for the explosion. I came pretty close more than once. My tolerance was getting all used up. That may sound bad but it is what it is. Me and people mix about as well as oil and vinegar sometimes.

Speaking of oil and vinegar as bad as things have been I can't help but be comforted by the state our garden is in. The extra mulch helped since I haven't been able to weed as much and it kept the plants up out of the muddy sand during the rains. Rand never did get a chance to dig out the far corner of the garden where it is mostly clay but we don't have anything planted there right now. He did have to dig a trench to keep the water from standing over there but it worked and nothing in the kitchen garden drowned.

I wish I could say the same for the grain fields. We lost a full quarter of one rye field and about a fifth of the field of oats. The small field of wheat looks OK except for a small section that laid over during a bad wind storm and got stuck in the damp ground. Rand isn't happy but he isn't crying about it either. "Babe, when a farmer can say he didn't lose everything he is having a good day because he still has more than he started with." I wrote that down and stuck it to the bathroom mirror. That's a good thought to start the day with. Be satisfied with what gain you get.

Our recent gains from the garden have been a constant supply of lettuce (mostly looseleaf), greens, radishes, spinach, turnips, Chinese cabbage, beets, broccoli, broccoli raab, kale, and carrots. It wasn't that long ago that it seems that I could wait for fresh greens and now here I am wondering if any will be going to waste. There isn't a day goes by that we don't have some type of salad. Sometimes I feel like a goat or a cow and just want to sit and graze all day long.

Today I pulled the first of the carrots. I think they look better than the first ones I grew last year. They are thicker and I haven't pulled any yet that look deformed though I did have one that looked like a cow udder with two teats on it. Rand says that happens on occasion, like a seed will try to put down two tap roots. I say it looks funny, and when I cut it to see what it looked like on the inside it was kind of dry and pithy. That one was cut up and used as treats for the animals.

I scrubbed and sliced a bunch of carrots for the dehydrator; put them in there with some broccoli and a few other things I'm trying to dry. I needed to use up the rest of those dried apricots before they get really nasty so I used a bunch to make Apricot Carrot Cake.

While you are preheating your oven to 350 degrees F, in a large mixing bowl combine one and three-quarters cup of flour, one teaspoon of baking powder, one-quarter teaspoon of baking soda and one-quarter teaspoon of salt. In a medium size bowl combine one beaten egg, one-half cup of sugar, one-half cup of apple sauce, one-half cup of shredded carrots, and two tablespoons of vegetable oil. Add all this at once to the dry ingredients and stir it just this once until everything is just moistened. The batter is really thick. Next fold in one-third cup of chopped dried apricots and then pour the batter into a prepared and greased loaf pan and bake 45 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the bread comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool. Wrap loaf and store overnight before slicing. The next day you can make a frosting for the caking by mixing one-half cup of powdered sugar and two teaspoons of apple juice. I'm still debating; my powdered sugar supply isn't exactly limitless and I might need it for something else.

The rest of the bushel of carrots was enough to fill a pressure canner full of jars. I still have some jars left over from last season so I'm putting the new stuff behind the old so that last season's jars get used first. I wonder how I'm going to label jars when I run out of permanent marker? I've still got several but they aren't going to last forever. Color coding somehow?

My next crop of carrots should be much bigger and I'll start canning other stuff like carrot jam or mixed carrots and peas. I'm glad all I had to mess with today was carrots because every spare second I've been going over some new plans in my head. When I talked to Rand about some of it he agreed but he was almost too tired for us to go into details. I'll try and work out some of the kinks in the plan and then bring it up again. But now, since the last of the jars are ready to come out of the canner, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is the first of March and we plan on planting the larger veggie field that Rand plowed for us and there are a couple of places in the existing garden that need cultivating.

 **March 2** **nd** – Rand told me last night that he had a heart to heart with Uncle George and that Uncle George understands why Rand didn't want to get around the house. Everyone hopes that Laurabeth can get through her grief, or at least get to a point where she isn't attacking Rand and I because we still have each other and the baby. He told me that Ron also came out to the field for a while.

"He looks bad, I mean really bad. I don't think he is sleeping too well when he sleeps at all. He brought his son and it just … it was just weird. Kid looks just like him. Laurabeth was pitching some fit or other and Ron just upped and walked off with him to get him away from it. I'm not sure that is the best way to handle Laurabeth or not, seems kind of mean. On the other hand … I don't know Babe, this … all of it … I'm trying to be sympathetic and not make things worse but I just don't know what to do."

"Don't look at me, I'm no psychologist I just had to listen to several quack at me for a couple of years. But sometimes too much sympathy can turn into pity and that can be worse than none at all. I guess we just go on being as … as … as kind as we can I guess you might call it and give Laurabeth time. But time doesn't heal all wounds no matter what they say. Some you only learn to cope with; they never really go away."

Thinking about how to deal with Laurabeth has reminded me of my own life and the distractions I used to keep myself from really learning to deal with my own emotional pain. First I used my physical pain; I didn't exactly come through the accident unscathed. Then came the adjustment in Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie's home and all of the emotional baggage that the other foster kids carried around with them. Then there was school, debate team, and work. Of course the world falling apart pretty much gave me something else to use as an excuse too.

One year ago I was in the warehouse and making plans to escape. Things were starting to really crumble around the edges and food was getting scarce. I can't believe how different my life today is from my life then. It sure doesn't resemble anything that I imagined. In fact, had you told me what my life would have been like I probably would have called you a liar … maybe even slugged you for messing with me so bad.

I never would have imagined the joy … and pain … that was coming my way. And listen to me? Sounding so introspective. How bizarre is that?

Is it selfish to be happy? To be finally and truly happy even with things so messed up? So many people are in pieces all around us. Take Mitch Peters for example. Cassie came by today with her grandfather and while Rand and Mr. Henderson talked she pulled me off to the side.

"Kiri, I know we haven't always gotten along but … look, it is kind of late to be saying this but … you and Julia … you did a good thing, being able to let it go … you know … what she did and some of the things she said. It took me a while but I finally saw that Julia really wasn't happy. I started seeing it but it was too late for me to do anything about it, if I ever could have in the first place."

I figured Cassie was out to soften me up for some reason and I wasn't too keen on taking the bait. "Um, not sure what … "

"Julia was trying to make herself be … I don't know … her ideal of what a wife and mother was supposed to be. And she wasn't ready for it. Ron tried but … he tried to do the right thing but it just wasn't working. Julia wanted him to be romantically in love with her, she needed that admiration and all the touchy feely stuff that goes with it and that just wasn't happening. It might have if she would have just been herself but … oh never mind. I'm not saying it right. Look, I need to ask you something."

Yep, she needed something but it wasn't as bad as I had thought. "Uh, OK. I guess,"

"How do you help Rand when he is … you know … really in a funk, blaming himself for stuff even when he couldn't have … "

I stopped her. Sometimes you just have to. I swear I don't understand half the things she says three-quarters of the time. "Cassie, I don't want to be nosy but you gotta give me more to work with. I don't need to know the dirty details but … is your grandfather OK?"

"It's not Poppy. And even if it was Abuela can handle him. It's Mitch. He had the whole operation on his shoulders when the raiders hit. Poppy was a lot sicker than we let anyone know. You can see how much weight he has lost. He got sick with something that tried to go down to his chest and things got scary. He was pretty out of it for a while and then so weak that he couldn't have held a gun much less gotten on a horse. Mitch was doing everything he could to protect the ranch and keep things together there. One of Poppy's cousins … the one that runs the cattle operation … just doesn't want to listen to Mitch, doesn't want to accept that Poppy is grooming Mitch to take over. He gives Mitch grief every chance he gets. He thinks it is making Mitch a better leader if he doesn't always have things his way but this time it backfired. Mitch was trying to fix a problem on the ranch instead of in the communication center keeping up with the patrols. By the time everyone figured out what was going on and Mitch got to the radio we'd already lost touch with four patrols and we could only react and work around the military and try and keep our own people safe. This has really shaken Mitch's confidence."

"What does your grandfather say?"

Cassie said defensively, "He doesn't blame Mitch. Of course he doesn't. No one on the ranch does though some folks out in the community have been talking."

Trying to calm her down I told her, "Yeah, some people will always talk. They want to blame someone, anyone for the hurt they are feeling."

"Poppy told Mitch basically the same thing but Mitch … I don't know Kiri, I'm worried. I've never seen him like this."

I tried to think of something to say that wouldn't make me sound like a know it all but I wasn't having a lot of luck so I fell back on telling her that I'd learned this from my father. "Cassie, you know my dad was in the military right? Well, one of the things we used to do was watch old war flicks and cowboy movies and documentaries about that kind of stuff. I used to ask him why he thought different people became good leaders and others became bad ones. One of the things he used to tell me was that responsibility changes people and the more responsibilities the more changes … sometimes good and sometimes not. Mitch isn't really that much older than us; he's what twenty-five or so?"

"Yeah, around that."

"So put yourself in his shoes. The ranch is a lot to deal with … trying to fill your grandfather's boots is probably worse. And then something this big happens and it is so bad … Mitch is probably second guessing himself to Hades."

"Yeah … yeah, pretty much. So what do you do? For Rand I mean … I know he can be moody and stuff."

"Moody? No, that's my gig. But Rand can be hard on himself if that's what you mean. Sometimes all you can do is be there and don't let them take the self-loathing too far. You can be kind to people but you can't save them from themselves. Some of this will be what shows whether Mitch really is a good pick to take over the ranch when it gets to be too much for your grandfather. He has to learn to take some blows so that he can be stronger when he needs to be. He needs to understand that there will always be thing beyond his control. If he can't he's just going to drive himself crazy and become so cautious that he isn't an effective leader."

I'm not sure what she was expecting me to say. Mitch isn't Rand and vice versa. I mean I know Mitch but not in a best bud kind of way. I told her to talk to Tia Cia and see if she had some idea of what to do; she would be closer to the situation.

After they left Rand, Austin, and I were able to finish getting all the seeds in the ground we wanted to. See, expanding the garden had already been in the works but Rand and I decided as part of our new plan to go the extra mile to plant an even larger garden. That means we are using up all the extra space that Rand has already plowed and between now and the beginning of April he will plow at least one more garden field. I have plenty of seed because I saved so much from last season. Today we planted bush beans, pole beans, lima beans, cantaloupes, carrots, collard greens, sweet corn, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, lettuce, romaine, kohlrabi, mustard greens, okra, green onions, English peas, black eyed peas, peppers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, radish, summer squash, winter squash, tomatoes, turnips, and watermelon.

Unless something goes terribly wrong I expect even after preserving everything we need for our own consumption we'll have enough to barter for stuff we don't have. If I don't barter the stuff fresh then I'll dry it and have it to barter during the off-season when food gets scarcer or to make my mixes with. The garden scraps will go towards feeding our expanding flocks and herds. I hope to have enough chickens in a few months that I can have chicken on at least one or two Sundays every month. I also plan on trying my hand at hard cheeses now that the cows are giving more milk again with a better milking schedule, assuming it can be done. The nannies will also be ready for milking once their kids are here or there abouts.

Plans, plans, plans. At least we have plans. But they are plans with a purpose. I'm tired of life happening to us. I mean I am just flaming tired of it. When there was only Rand and I we got by. Now there is Austin and this baby coming and I'm done sitting back and waiting. I know I can't control everything. I know that I'm going to have to go through stuff as God sees fit … to teach me a lesson or to strengthen me or to prepare me for something else that is coming down the road … but there is no sense to sit around doing nothing to prepare. God created man so that he would happen to the world not so that we could sit around waiting for the world to happen to us.

 **March 3** **rd** – Rand went early this morning to pick up the new stuff for the larger cooler. We still owe a little bit on it but Rand said that Mr. Coffey asked us to pay him in sewing. Not having any women folk over there seems to be creating a few problems for them. They can do all sorts of manly stuff but sewing up the seat of a pair of britches or putting a new zipper in seems to be beyond them. So today in between baking I've been using the treadle to repair two huge duffle bags of clothes.

First I had to wash them … I don't think they'd been doing much but boiling them to loosen the dirt and then rinsing them out and hanging them to hard dry. The water was fairly disgusting but I'm happy to say that I was able to wash the clothes outside. Rand finally hooked the PVC pipe from the passive solar water tanks on the barn and ran the pipe down to a spigot with a hose that I can used to fill a heavy duty plastic barrel. The set up looks real similar to barrel composters that Rand built for me but instead of being hand-cranked this one has a belt that is hooked up to an exercise bike. I do the laundry by peddling, the peddling turns the belt, the belt turns the gears, the gears turn the barrel. The clothes are beat as they get tossed around in the barrel; it actually uses less water to wash them this way than when I was stomping on them in the bathtub.

It is still a lot of work but nowhere near as much as when I did them in the bathtub. I don't have to worry about slipping and falling down either. And Austin and Rand can also help with the laundry this way. Austin took turns with me working the peddles. Thank goodness the seat on the bike is wide and padded, I don't think I'm in the shape I was a few months back and the idea of trying to ride a skinny seat the way I did all the way from Tampa gives me the heebie jeebies.

As a matter of fact I'm almost too tired to write any more; not shaky tired but pretty close. I managed to finish up all of the Coffey's clothes and we'll deliver them tomorrow at the swap meet. I also have all of the pre-orders made for Missy. And on top of that I managed to throw some mixes together over the last couple of days. Having Austin around to help Rand is actually helping me. 'Course by the end of the day I'm so tired I just about can't stand myself but it isn't as bad as it could be.

One of the things that I made up is Creamy Wild Rice Soup. This is another "just add water" that should really work and it mostly uses stuff that we can spare without any problems. You put an envelope of powdered country gravy mix together with one tablespoon chicken bouillon granules, two teaspoons dried minced onion, two teaspoons dried celery flakes, one-quarter cup uncooked wild rice, one cup uncooked white rice, and two tablespoons coarsely chopped dried mushrooms. Mix all of that together and then the directions are to add seven cups of water and bring it to a boil. Put a lid on your pot and simmer everything for about twenty-five minutes or until the rice is cooked.

The other thing I made was some molasses mustard. The only reason I even thought to make this is because Mr. Coffey sent some beer he brewed home with Rand. See, Rand is pretty careful with stuff like that because he used to let it get out of hand and the "bottle" of beer was one of those ginormous ones called a growler. It was really dark beer and Rand drank it to be sociable with a customer but he couldn't finish it. He brought it home and was going to feed it to Taz.

"Don't you dare!"

"Pig might get a little tipsy but it won't hurt him Babe."

"I don't care about the stupid pig I meant don't you dare waste it. I can use it to make beer bread and save on my yeast."

"Beer … bread?"

"Yeah. It's something we would make at the diner. You take three cups of self-rising bread … only we don't have self-rising so I'll have to add baking powder and salt … and then add a can of beer. Then you just mix and bake. Bread rises perfect because there is yeast in the beer."

"I've heard of everything now. Beer bread. What won't you come up with?"

"Yeah, well, I could have made drunk biscuits but the beer bread will go further and last longer."

Rand just shook his head and laughed and gave me the still half full bottle but told me he needed to return the bottle to Mr. Coffey. There was enough beer in the bottle to make two loaves of bread and enough left after that I made a couple of small plastic containers of molasses mustard.

I took a cup of dried powdered mustard. I have plenty of it because it seems everyone had some in their cabinets and Momma was real fond of the stuff. She made most of our mustards from scratch as Daddy was kind of particular about his condiments. Who wouldn't be with the way Momma could cook?

To the powdered mustard I added eight tablespoons of beer, four tablespoons of molasses, four tablespoons of cider vinegar, one-half teaspoon of ground cinnamon, one-half teaspoon of ground allspice, one-half teaspoon of ground pepper, and one-quarter teaspoon of ground cloves. Mix this all up really well, put it in an airtight container, and then let it sit for twenty-four hours to mellow. The best thing is that this doesn't need refrigeration.

Everything is in boxes over by the front door waiting for tomorrow. We don't plan on being there all day. Rand wants to get over there, check everything out quickly, and then head on home after lunch or earlier. I've got a picnic lunch planned just in case. I'm not sure who we'll see at the swap meet tomorrow. I hope to see Mrs. Withrow or maybe Momma O. I wouldn't mind seeing Alicia or Missy but I doubt I will what with everything that has been happening. I guess the babies would be too young anyway and they wouldn't want to leave them. I might see Ram and Concha but who knows with everything over there being at sixes and sevens; I'm only guessing that Bill will have a trailer at the swap meet the way they did before.

The person I hope I don't see is that SueLinda chick. I'm not jealous; I'm not. But I'll be honest and admit it here in my journal that I'm feeling a little defensive. I've heard she is a beautiful woman. My mirror doesn't lie, I'm more than a little rough around the edges; and fat, let's not forget fat. So tomorrow I'm going to do something stupid; I'm wearing the high-waisted skirt that I made and one of the pretty tunic shirts that Missy sent over. I still have to wear socks and my work boots – I'm not going to make a complete fool of myself – but at least I won't look like a rodeo clown. I'm also going to let my pony tail down. What is it that Daddy always said during football season? Oh yeah … "The best defense is a good offense." Works for me.


	84. Chapter 83

Chapter 83

 **March 8** **th** – It's been a retched few days. A mole hill that turned into a mountain and yet more of our fears realized. It started out innocently enough though, wish it could have continued that way.

You know, there are days that just make me wonder. It can only be my luck that the one day I decide to wear a skirt would just happen to be one of the windiest days we've seen in a long time. It wasn't constant; it was more one of those tricky winds. You'd have everything battened down and laid out and then WHOOSH! And let me tell you, I did not look like that old poster of Marilyn Monroe. I'm not sure what I looked like but I felt really silly … and irritated … and embarrassed.

I knew when we got up on Saturday that it was breezy. It wasn't cold thank goodness but it was cool enough that I made sure everyone had a jacket and I threw three ponchos and a collapsible umbrella in the picnic basket in case it decided to rain. No biggie really. What I hadn't bargained for is that the trees surrounding the home site protected us from the worst of it; by the time we got to the end of the road we'd had to stop twice. Finally Rand and Austin sat on their hats rather than wear them and I'd had to sit the picnic basket on top of mine to keep it from blowing away. I also laid the picnic blanket across the hay to keep it from blowing in my face.

When we got to the park it was still pretty early and not too many people were out and about. Those that were setting up tables were busy doing that and there wasn't too many folks just wandering around. Lucky for me. Rand having to help haul me out of the wagon bed while I tried to hold onto my dignity couldn't have been a pretty sight. I had to give up just jumping out of the wagon a while back. But was I to be spared completely? Of course not.

"Oh Rand! You didn't hurt your back did you? You should have gotten a couple of other men to help you."

Not recognizing the voice but feeling that my luck was pretty well holding true to form I turned to find this gorgeous blonde woman standing by Rand, holding his arm, and giving him a concerned yet conspiratorial look. Rand's face on the other hand had turned to granite.

I sighed and said, "Let me guess, SueLinda Adcock?"

She looked a little surprised but recovered almost too quick for me to have seen it. "Why yes. Rand … mentioned me?" Boy did she do coy well.

"Of course."

"Surely he didn't tell you … well … I mean…everything," and then she opened her eyes real wide.

"Actually I heard about you from other people. By the way, you do that really well."

"Excuse me?" I'd caught her off guard. Point for me.

"Oh the … what do you call it? The butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth look while trying to look guilty for something that you didn't do," I told her with a condescending laugh. I perfected the rebuttal technique when I had to have too much to do with certain girls at my highschool.

"Oh, well, you can think what you want if it makes you feel better," she said with a condescending smile of her own.

I laughed out loud at that like she was just too cute and I was having fun sparing with her and then shot back, "Now really, aren't you a little old to be playing games like this? Face it, Rand is the one-that-got-away. Why you should care I don't even know. From the sound of things you've already got so many notches in your headboard that it is mostly just a toothpick these days."

That hit the target but wasn't anywhere near a bulls eye; still, I had forced her to drop the smile and glare at me with a bit of a snarl. I pressed the little advantage I had and said in my best fake-helpful voice, "I'd watch that if I were you Sweety. You'll cake your make up in those creases and your wrinkles will show up even more."

If she could make comments about my weight I figured I was free to make comments about her age. Thing is I hadn't realized it but we had more of an audience than I had intended and several of the people were trying real hard not to laugh; but not Missy who surprised me by being there. She bellowed out a loud laugh and said, "Score!" Then she turned to SueLinda and I realized that maybe those two had met before. "Hi Suelee. Been hearing lots of … real interesting … hmmm … stuff … from up and down the river. You are making quite a reputation for yourself. But then again you always did seem to enjoying flaunting your … advertising degree. Heard you are doing pretty well selling your … hmmm … puppies. Might not find people quite as gullible around here though. They like to … well, get more for their money if you know what I mean. We don't need or want your 'girls and gambling' flotilla."

After that Miss Adcock stalked off causing her well padded rear bumper to swish in the tight jeans she was wearing. You could hear them go scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch as she stomped away. Missy had really hit the bulls eye and then some; I hope she doesn't have any trouble over it. I later found out – bad, bad Kiri for listening to gossip – that Missy hadn't been exaggerating. I mean I know there are women out there like that but to me that kind of life would create more problems than it would solve, not to mention it seems just plain gross. I had enough trouble getting comfortable with Rand in the beginning; I just can't imagine trying to deal with what amounts to a whole herd of guys. Why would you even want to? One is enough trouble and responsibility.

Poor Rand; looking back and forth between Missy and me I thought he was going to have a coronary right there. He was breathing hard like one of Uncle George's bulls right before they charge. I looked at Missy and Missy looked at me and we were both trying so hard not to smile that we wound up laughing. Poor Rand. He popped his cap out of his back pocket tugged it down over his head, crossed his arms and said, "Dang it!" That only made it worse. Looking back if I had known what it would cause I would have kept my mouth shut but as seems to happen from time to time my mouth got way out in front of my brain.

Austin was just standing there, looking back and forth at us, trying to figure out what was going on. Rand wasn't really angry but he was uncomfortable. I tried really hard to get myself under control; Rand finally gave up and just shook his head. "Missy, please don't drag Kiri into one of your feuds."

Missy got this real innocent look on her face and said, "A feud. Who? Me? I just thought I'd help things along a bit although Kiri did sound like she was doing fine on her ownsome."

"Missy … " Rand growled warningly.

Missy winked and then went to where Bill was standing there holding the baby. Bill was smiling and kissed the top of Missy's head before handing the baby over and picking up a laundry basket of odds and ends. I thought no time like the present so I sang out, "Oh Bill, you dropped this one."

He was looking around trying to figure out what he had dropped when I put the bag with the pre-orders I had made as well as the mixes on top of what he had in his arms. "Hmmm. Dropped this did I? Thanks. I'm sure Missy would have had my head if I'd somehow misplaced this stuff." Bill just smiled and nodded at Rand who all but groaned in frustration at Missy's teasing.

With that they went off towards their trailer to unlock it and finish setting up. I went over to Rand who was still grumping. About the second I had opened my mouth to say something a gust of breeze came and flipped my skirt up a bit. It's not that it flipped the skirt up very high – I didn't flash anyone – but there was just enough cool in the breeze that it tickled places that weren't used to being uncovered very often and I squealed just a bit.

Of course that made Rand laugh and put him back in a good mood. "Serves you right. Bill might be able to live with Missy's brand of crazy but I don't know how he does it and still keeps his hair." Then he took a breath and said real serious, "I wish you'd stay away from SueLinda. No, I'm not worried about you believing her … thank you for trusting me … it's that she can be a real piece of work and right now … you know … the baby and all …"

"I won't go out of my way to antagonize her if that is what you are worried about despite the way I just acted, but I'm not going to just turn tail every time I see her either. You're my husband, this is our home, our community, and I'm not going to let her rule it just because she comes to town on occasion. Maybe I could have acted a little more … ummm … gracious. OK, no maybes about it, I could have acted a whole lot less catty; I just got carried away. But I refuse to be pushed into a corner by the likes of her. Period."

Rand just snorted, "Between you and Missy it isn't likely that she'll have the chance to rule around here. Just don't antagonize her. She can be vengeful."

"I imagine she can. Girls like her are used to getting their way and don't like it much when they don't. Although I would have thought she had outgrown those kind of games at her age. And is Missy serious? SueLinda is a … whatchamacallit … a madam? And she has girls on boats?"

Rand just went "Mmmm" and then nodded at Gator and Junior – two of Mr. Henderson's men – who were watching our "parking lot" for trouble makers and horse thieves. I grabbed my basket that I had some knitted socks and some seeds in for trade from the back of the wagon and followed Rand and Austin as they headed into the roped off area being used for tables.

Rand slowed down so that we were side by side while Austin walked ahead heading towards where he saw Tommy. He said quietly, "Babe, I know this is going to sound unfair but … look, I know SueLinda can be a pain and I know that it sits bad with you to ignore someone that is intentionally baiting you but I'm asking you to ignore her the best you can. She's going to try and draw you into a fight with her now that she thinks she can. She's just that kind of person and good at twisting and turning things to make herself look good. We don't need any more trouble, not here at the swap meets. So please, just … you know what I'm trying to say, right?"

"Yeah, and you're right, it isn't fair."

"Babe … "

"Let me finish. It isn't fair and it isn't what I'd do if I could get away with it. But I'm not stupid and I know we do need the contacts and stuff from these swap meets and that we don't need any more trouble … at least not outright."

A little cautiously Rand said, "Then you understand."

"I understand that you aren't saying it to hurt my feelings. I don't agree with letting her get away with being the way she is and doing the things she is doing but like Momma always said, there is more than one way to skin a cat."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that little Miss Thang is going to find out that the weather might be warming up but if she tries to pull her stuff around here she is going to be experiencing winter weather year round. Missy and I can't be the only females around here that don't want that kind of crud around."

Rand got the hint. He dropped it and steered clear of the topic after that. That settled I looked around as we walked. You could see right away that there were a lot of non-locals mixed up with the people we knew, but they were a different flavor than we'd had at the last swap meet. These folks were just like us, just wanting to do a little business in peace. There was even an area set aside for adult beverages again but it was roped off and set well away from the main circle of tables and trailers and it was a different crowd from the ones that had been doing it last time. They had tables and benches set up and they were also selling food. Looked more like an abarroteria or a bodega or even a tienda, like a small store that sells food you can eat there and a beer to wash it down with. The smells coming from their cooking area were so good and reminded me of the truck vendors you'd see around Tampa.

Rand pointed to where Clyde set up his trailer. "Brendon's here and I see Austin has found Tommy. Do you see Uncle George anywhere?"

I told him I didn't so we made our way over to the trailer, said hello, and found out that Uncle George was staying home to keep an eye on things. "Dad is tired. I mean really tired. It wasn't that hard to talk him into staying home so he could whittle some wooden pegs for an extension we are putting onto the hay barn. That'll keep him sitting in one spot for a while anyway. Alicia and Melly are home watching the kids and Ron is there to keep an eye on things too."

Rand got a worried look on his face but it cleared up when Clyde said, "We've started a neighborhood patrol. It's nothing like Henderson has … yet … but we are looking at a couple of the younger couples spreading out into the empty houses that are still standing and in good repair. We're going to start pulling down everything else so there is less for raiders to hide in or take over. More control for us that way too, not just anyone will be able to move in. If you've got the time maybe you could help with those big mules of yours."

"Pulling down the houses?"

"No. We are going to salvage everything we can, even the concrete blocks and chunks of broken concrete for walls. What we need is something or someone to grade the area after we've pulled the houses down. You think your team is up to it?"

"I'd have to see each location to tell you for sure but mostly likely yes so long as all of the debris has been picked out and the ground reasonably tamped down."

"Good deal Lucille … that's what I wanted to hear. I'll relay the message and we'll work out a trade for the work."

While Rand and Clyde nattered on about some ammo and junk, I asked Brendon how Alicia was doing. For the first time I saw him perk up like life was worth living. Brendon likes being a Daddy, hates changing diapers, and hates to be puked on even worse but wouldn't trade his wife and son for anything. I'm glad for him. I wanted to ask about Laurabeth but didn't know how to start and Brendon kept talking around her like he wanted to avoid the subject so I let it go.

Rand is a popular guy, whether it's for his personality or for the mules depends on who you are talking to, either way it wasn't long before we weren't moving at all. I don't do the little quiet wifey thing well but didn't want to interrupt or side track the business he was conducting so I just kept moving slowly around the tables making notes of things as I passed them (and trying to keep my skirt from doing a Marilyn Monroe). I didn't get far before Tommy and Austin came to flank me on either side.

"Let me guess, Rand noticed I slipped my leash."

Both boys laughed … but they didn't leave my side until I'd made my first circuit of all the tables. Coming abreast of Rand again I pushed them back in Rand's direction to tell him that I was fine and staying out of trouble and that I didn't need a babysitter.

Not five minutes later as I was in the middle of talking to a lady that has turned her hobby of spinning and weaving into a lucrative trade Rand was there beside me. Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure I deserve a little of it but having him acting like I was going to talk out of both sides of my mouth by telling him I would be careful and behave and then acting the exact opposite was beginning to get on my nerves real fast. He expected me to just trust his word that there was nothing between him and SueLinda but he wasn't trusting mine that I wasn't going to cause trouble.

"Forget it. I'm just going to go sit in the wagon."

"Why? Aren't you feeling OK? Do I need to find Ken?"

"I'm fine."

"Then did someone say something to upset you?"

"Rand … ," Then I stopped. I realized that the middle of the swap meet wasn't any place to have the conversation. "Never mind. I'm going to go sit in the wagon."

"Hey. Wait! What's going on?"

"If I go to the wagon and sit then you can conduct your business."

"What has my business got to do with anything?" Rand asked as I continued to thread my way through the crowd to get back to swap meet entrance.

"If I'm walking around you can't do your business. If I'm standing next to you the men don't feel free to talk so you can't do your business. Lose-lose. I'm just going back to the wagon assuming of course you think that I can sit there without getting into trouble. Gator and Junior will be there."

"What the …?" Rand started but several men intercepted him and I just kept walking until I got to the wagon. Getting in was a bit of a trip but I made it and then got as comfortable as my snit would let me. Good thing that I had stuck a pencil and notepad in my basket or I would have been bored out of my skull on top of being angry; never a good combination for me, in fact one to be avoided at all cost. I was working steadily, making plans for what was due to be ready to harvest in the next couple of weeks, when Lucretia Gilkins came to the side of the wagon and got in my face.

For some reason at that very moment I had a memory come back as clear as if I was experiencing it there. I remember my great grandmother warning us kids to be careful what I prayed for or we just might get it. She said, "Virtues are like muscles; to develop them you have to exercise them and train them. When you pray for a particular virtue, don't be surprised when God sends you into situations where you have to use that virtue you want so bad."

I had prayed for patience, which I'm sadly lacking. I know I need it for Austin and the baby. My mom seemed to have an endless supply of the stuff and I want to be like that for my kid. And what does God do? He puts me where I have to learn to use patience more than I want to. I guess kind of like practice makes perfect.

"So, he finally wised up to what an embarrassment you are and sent you to the wagon to get you out from under foot," she said with a nasty sneer.

Boy did I want to unload on her but instead I just ignored her, tuned her out and concentrated on my work. Eventually she left. I don't know how long it was after that, probably about thirty minutes, Rand comes stomping out to the wagon. "Where in the Sam Hill do you get off telling Lucretia that I sent you to the wagon?! I … "

"Excuse me? I didn't say a word to that woman and two where do you get off assuming I'd do anything like that in the first place?"

I gave him ice face. I don't know if I'd ever done that to him before but I know it hadn't been often if I had 'cause he pulled back real fast. "Oh. Then why would she be saying … "

"Why would I know why that woman does anything? I'm sitting her minding my own business. She came over and tried to start trouble and I ignored her exactly how I promised you I would. End of story. What she did or said after she left here is beyond my control."

"You didn't say anything to her?"

"Isn't that what I just said? Just go on back in and do your business. I'm fine where I'm at. If you don't believe that I've been behaving go ask Gator and Junior, they've been eyeballing me the entire time I've been out here."

"And what is that supposed to mean? That if I don't believe you?"

"Just what I said."

"No, it means something else, I can tell."

"Rand, I'm not fighting about this. I'm not causing a scene. You said you wanted me to behave and I agreed to behave and that is all there is to it."

"Then why are you out here?"

"Because regardless of what is coming out of your mouth your actions are saying the exact opposite. Just like with Lucretia, you automatically assumed that I was the one at fault for whatever ruckus she is creating. I promised that I wouldn't cause a scene but you still thought you better dog my heels, first with the boys and then you did it yourself. You said that we need the contacts here at the swap meets, the work that you can generate, and I agree with you. But you can't do it if you feel you have to dog me all the time so I decided it was just better to go to the wagon. You've made your opinion perfectly clear and this is my response. The end … and I'm not discussing it anymore."

"Kiri … "

"I mean it Rand, I'm not talking about it. I'm done."

Now he was mad but at the time I didn't care. "Fine. Be that way. Act like a spoiled brat. Thanks for making my day so much less stressful."

He left and I stayed exactly where I had been and things finally quieted back down so that I could go back to planning though I felt even less like doing it than before.

"Well at least you aren't a cry baby. Julia always turned into a sprinkler system to get her way."

I jumped as I hadn't heard Missy come up. "Don't start Missy."

"Wasn't going to, sometimes a girl has got to stand her ground. But if you were asking my advice, not that you are, I would let Rand apologize as soon as he figures out what a donkey's backside he is being."

"He doesn't need to apologize. He's entitled to his opinion just as much as I'm entitled to mine."

"Wrong. Not about the opinion part but about him not needing to apologize. If you let him start thinking that he doesn't need to apologize for stuff then pretty soon he won't think he needs to apologize for stuff."

More than a little irritated I asked her, "Missy, why do you think this is any of your business?"

She laughed, "You know, one of the reasons I've liked you from the start is because there isn't much back up in you. You look like this sweet and innocent little thing but then you open your mouth. Look, Rand will figure it out. And if he doesn't you can explain it to him. Don't let this fester, it's not worth it and Rand needs to know that he hurt your feelings."

"And why would you think he hurt my feelings? Did I say he did? Did I say anything to anyone?"

"Let's put it this way … been there, done that. Not with Bill but with someone else. I tried to be all that guy wanted me to be instead of being what I wanted to be. Compromise is good … giving in all the time isn't."

"Missy … "

"Look, I get it. And Rand isn't stupid he'll get it too … eventually."

"Fine. Whatever. Did the pre-orders fit? Did they all get picked up?"

"OK, we'll change the subject, just remember what I said. Yeah, everything fit and I have another dozen orders. Those soup mixes you make are a hit as well. Everyone keeps asking where the stuff is coming from. Sure you don't want me to say anything?"

"No, absolutely not. More notoriety I don't need."

Just then Bill came up. "Hey beautiful, sorry I kept you waiting. You ready to go let Concha and Marta take a break?"

"Yup … see you later Kiri. And remember what I said."

The morning passed with me determinedly working on my notes and trying to forget about everything else and then with the sound like a herd of elephants a bunch of boys led by Austin and Tommy ran up to the wagon. Luckily the mules are used to ruckus and the boys were smart enough to avoid getting too close to them.

"Kiri, can I take my lunch and go eat under that tree with Tommy? Please? Leo Jones found a snake and his dad said he could take it home."

"A snake?!"

"Easy Babe, it's just an old grass snake. Leo's dad was with animal control and checked it out first." Rand wasn't far behind the boys. In fact a lot of people had started coming out to their wagons to have their own picnics.

Why Austin felt like he had to ask my permission with Rand standing right there is beyond me but they were all waiting for my answer so I said, "As long as Rand doesn't need you and you promise to eat all of your food then it's fine with me."

I gave Austin his BLT wrap that I'd made with some canned bacon, lettuce from the garden, and canned diced tomatoes that I drained. I also put a couple of churros in a napkin for him for dessert. Then I filled his water bottle with the apple juice that was still cold enough to make your teeth hurt since I had put it straight into a big insulated canteen after letting it sit in the cooler for two days. Then all the boys trooped off and I watched them go to the tree and promptly start splitting everything into pieces to share it around.

"He'll be fine. Leo's dad was a scout master and eating his lunch just on the other side there. See him?"

"Yeah. Do you want your lunch?"

"Actually … Kiri … I'm sorry. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like that."

"Did Missy say something to you?" I asked indignantly.

"No. About what?"

"Nothing, never mind. She was over here a little while ago sticking her nose in."

"Sounds like something she would do. So, will you tell me why I'm catching heck?"

"You aren't catching anything. I haven't been around to give you any. I haven't said anything about …"

"Yeah, I know. Look … just pretend I'm a complete idiot and explain it to me in words of one or two syllables and slow down if you start losing me."

"That's not funny. And I've already told you that … "

"I know what you said I don't know why you feel you had to say it."

I was getting angry again and I didn't want to be, my stomach was only just getting out of all the knots it had been in. But unless I wanted to act like the spoiled brat that Rand had called me I didn't see anything else to do.

"Rand, short answer. You asked me to not get into trouble and I promised I wouldn't. I promised. Then you turn around and act like I'm not to be trusted to keep my word. I cut through all the crap and decided it was just simpler to go to the wagon. I can't make the concept any simpler than that for you."

Rand just looked at me. I know he was dying to say something. I could see him all but chewing on the words to keep them in his mouth. He opened his mouth but never got a chance to because a military patrol rode up hard and they had several wounded men with them. "Is Pastor Ken around?! We need a medic or a doctor or something!"

The boys, who had heard the call for a medic, scattered to hunt up Ken while the men ran over to help the injured. I slithered out of the wagon without much dignity but I did make it to the ground in one piece, bringing the sheet I had covered the hay with. The blood was coming from some place and I figured Ken would need something to tie it up until the military medics arrived.

Ken arrived about the same time I managed to. I went to give him the sheet and Rand grabbed my arm and snatched me backwards. Before I could bark at Rand Ken said, "Thanks Kiri, come around here, your hands are smaller and I need someone to hold this bandage while I tie it."

I heard the men reporting by radio that they'd been ambushed. They'd killed several of their attackers but some had still escaped.

After it was over with Ken said, "I didn't know you had first aid training. If I would have know that … "

"You would have what?" I asked with a small smile. "Signed me up to be your nurse? You know good and well you wouldn't have. Besides, the only instruction I've gotten would be called on-the-job training. They always stuck me with the terminal patients at the warehouse and I helped Aunt Wilma patch up the boys when they'd get into fights and stuff. No one seemed to complain too much."

"Ha! Don't listen to her Ken." Ram had been talking with the soldiers. "We didn't dare say anything. We were too afraid of her. It gives me nightmares just to remember her coming at me with that first aid kit of her aunt's."

"Shut up Ram." Great, all I needed on top of everything else was Ram's mouth.

"Of course Chica. Anything you say chica." The act he was putting on got a few laughs from the other men.

Ignoring Ram is easier said than done but I managed it that time. I tried to stand up by myself but found Rand right behind me giving me a boost. I walked away and was trying to get back in the wagon when Rand was right there, "Come back to the swap meet."

"No. You have business and … "

"Ok. I get it. I shouldn't have shadowed you like that. Come back into the swap meet."

"Rand, this goes beyond the swap meet. You just flat out don't trust me to be reasonable in public. You don't. I can see it in your face even now. You're thinking, give into her to stop the fight then just keep an eye on her some other way. So no, I'd rather just stay here."

"You're really going to be a hard head about this aren't you."

"If that's what you want to call it then yes. You acted like my promise wasn't worth the breath it took to make it and treated me like I have no honor."

"Now you're exaggerating. I … I … "

I wasn't bending on this one. He either trusted me or he didn't and from where I was standing he didn't. Rather than have that hurt eating at me while he showed me again and again exactly what he was thinking I was going to stay in the wagon.

"Come into the swap meet now. It's embarrassing me to have people wondering why you are sitting out here. I'm tired of telling people that Lucretia is crazy and that I'm not making you sit out here."

"Yeah well how do you think it makes me feel to have people seeing you hovering on top of me like my mouth needs to be locked up with a chastity belt? Besides, what do you care what Lucretia or anyone else thinks or says if you are so sure you are right?"

I had put my foot on the wagon tongue to climb up when Rand put an arm around my middle and the other on the side of the wagon. "Don't do this Kiri, don't make this into more than I meant it to be."

"What you meant? I understood exactly what you meant and I'm making it out to be exactly that."

"What do you want from me? You do get in trouble and you know it."

"I never get into trouble on purpose. Are you going to hold it against me because … forget it, that's exactly what you are doing. Perhaps it would have been more comfortable for you if I would have just been some helpless princess type. Fine, you want that, you'll get it. Anything to just have this over with." I climbed back off the wagon and stood there.

"Fine. Two can play this game. We're going back to the swap meet and you are going to stay and help Missy and Bill and you'll stay there until I pick you up."

We walked back to the meet and over to the Shack trailer. Rand said for all to hear, "Stay here and don't leave. I'll come pick you up when I'm ready to go."

Missy sighed and said, "There goes my cousin, Idiot Extraordinaire. Bill go say something to him."

"No. Leave it alone Missy," I told her. "It isn't anything."

"You sure? Because your face and what is coming out of your mouth aren't in sync."

I put on my best waitress face and said, "Everything's just fine. What do you need me to help with?"

I wound up folding incoming items and bagging outgoing items, pretty mindless stuff which was fine by me. I finally registered that Missy kept bringing me stuff instead of me coming to get it from her and really looked up for the first time. I wish I hadn't. Rand was standing around with what were obviously friends from his past, laughing and carrying on … and SueLinda was there too, all but hanging on him. I just went back to what I was doing.

Missy said, "Kiri … I …"

"Forget it Missy. It is his choice and he's made it abundantly clear. Is that next pile of stuff ready?"

"You're just going to let this go?"

"Rand doesn't trust me not to make a scene. He's trying to push me into making one so he can prove his point that I'm not capable of controlling myself. I'm not going to give him a scene."

"That's my girl. Prove you're right," Missy said relieved.

"It doesn't have anything to do with me being right. In the past I cared enough to make a scene when forced into the situation. I refuse to care about it anymore. I refuse to be forced one way or the other."

"Kiri! Don't say that," Missy begged.

"Missy, Rand cares more about being right than he cares about trusting me. He cares so much more that he is willing to risk everything by taking up with that SueLinda woman just to try and get me to have a snit out here in public after he warned me away from her just this morning. Fine. That's his choice. And this is mine."

I kept working until Rand came over and just stood there. SueLinda came over with him and looked at me with a grin, "Oh Kiri, I didn't see you standing there. You missed some fun."

"I saw. I had work to do," I answered her calmly and politely.

"You saw? Really? Oh dear. Rand maybe we shouldn't have …"

Rand started looking uncomfortable. "Knock it off SueLinda."

"But Rand, I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea," she laughed.

I looked at her and said, "No one got the wrong idea SueLinda. They know Rand and by now they know you. There will be a few to think the worst but there always are. Either way, Rand can do what he wants. I'm not his boss."

"That's right … you're just his what? Oh yeah, just his wife."

"SueLinda that … is … enough." Rand snapped.

"But darling … "

"Don't."

"Don't what?" she laughed. "See you soon. Don't forget … you promised."

Missy said in a dull voice, "Rand, I've said it before but I've never meant it as much as I do right now; you're an idiot. Kiri, you want to come home with us? It looks like things are pretty much over anyway."

"No. I need to get home and piece out this next set of pre-orders. And I've got the garden that needs tending to. I've also got that shirt that I need to finish for Austin."

Missy hugged me and whispered in my ear, "I mean it, you need a break from him you come to us first, you hear?"

I just shrugged and followed Rand out to the wagon; we collected Austin along the way and he chattered enough to fill the silence between us. I got into the back of the wagon before there was a question of who was sitting where and we left. The trip home seemed to last forever.

After we made it home we went on about our business the same as always. Or maybe not the same as always, the chores got finished, we went through the motions, I cooked dinner, and we cleaned up from the day. Rand and I were very careful to say nothing but that said everything. I guess we play acted well enough since Austin didn't seem to notice and went off to bed a little earlier than usual from the excitement from the day. Now came the time I was dreading.

Rand and I just sat and said more nothing but the day caught up with me too and I must have fallen asleep in the chair. I didn't wake up until Rand came over and said quietly, "Kiri. Kiri. Come on. Let's go to bed. It's been … it's been a long day."

I stood up only to fall down and hit my knees when it felt like someone shoved a white hot poker into my side. I shook off Rand's arm when he went to grab me and leaned over and breathed through the pain.

"Kiri? Are you … do you need me to go get Ken?" Rand asked anxiously.

"I'm fine. Same old thing. I just moved the wrong way. It'll go away. I shouldn't have fallen asleep in the chair." Then I walked to the bathroom and shut the door and got ready for bed, came out, climbed in bed and tried to go back to sleep. Amazingly enough I did. I don't even remember Rand coming to bed.

Next day was the same. All we did was go through the motions. We got up, tended the animals, ate breakfast and I cleaned up; there was no church service so the day was supposed to be fairly quiet. I decided to continue working on my notes out in the orchard where it was quiet and I could try and get outside of the pain I was in; pain not from the scar tissue, though that was there and dull, but from everything else.

Lunch was a large salad of things that needed to be eaten out of the garden and I crumbled up some of the canned bacon. Austin plowed through his and then asked to be excused to go play with Woofer. As soon as he left I gave up pretending to eat and took my plate over to the sideboard and raked it into the slop pail then left to go back to the orchard. I was several yards from the house when I heard something smashed. I kept walking and thinking, "If he expects me to clean up after his temper tantrum he has another think coming."

Not long after that I heard Rand tell Austin to stay near the house because he was going hunting. Two hours later I still hadn't heard a single shot. I just thought hunting hadn't been very good or that "hunting" had just been a story he told to Austin because he needed to get away or go visiting or something (or someone). I went inside and started dinner. It was just a potluck stew but it took all my concentration to mix it and cook it without burning it; all my brains seemed to be leaking out of my ears.

I was putting dinner on the table when Rand came in. Maybe if I had looked at him I would have had some warning of what was to come but I was putting food on Austin's plate and didn't look up. After dinner was over with we settled down for the evening. The days are finally getting longer which means more can be done in the evening without the lamps. I had been looking forward to it but at that point all I wanted was for the day to end so that I could slip into oblivion. I didn't want to think anymore. I didn't want to feel anymore. I just wanted to stop and get off the merry go round before I puked.

The daylight might have been getting longer but that didn't mean that we had any more energy. Austin was nodding off and he and Woofer went off to bed without a squeak. I was done. As soon as Austin headed off to bed I went to change and go to bed myself. When I came out of the bedroom Rand was standing right there.

"Come up to the dormer room with me," he said in a quiet voice.

I really didn't feel like it but I felt even less like dealing with the ruckus of a scene so I followed him upstairs. It was the beginning of March but it still got cool at night and there wasn't any heat up there. I shivered in my nightgown and bare feet.

"Here, sit beside me." That I didn't want to do either but Rand seemed determined to say something and I was pretty cold by that point.

"Look, this has gotten way out of hand. You aren't talking to me. You aren't … "

"Rand, just spit it out. Stop telling me what my faults are, I'm well aware of what they are. Just jump ahead to the part where you tell me what you want."

Rand put his head in his hands and said, "That's not what I mean. Look, I went out to hunt but you know what I did? Do you?"

I just looked at him.

He sighed. "I fielded questions from over a dozen people. How were you feeling? Had you accepted my apology? Was I sleeping on the sofa or in the dog house? Had you kicked me out all together?"

"Rand, I'm too tired for jokes. Just spit out what you … "

"You think I'm joking?! I got reamed out by just about every biddy in the Ladies' Auxiliary. Mrs. Withrow had Uncle George drive her out special. Momma O was out driving with some of her women friends. Henderson said things must be OK because he hadn't heard any explosions out our way and then the worst one was your blasted brother who threatened to beat the crap out of me if I didn't fix this. No … no actually the worst was when Missy finally explained to me just how bad I had messed up."

"Just ignore them."

"Ignore them? Are you kidding?"

"That's what I said."

"Yeah. Like you could ignore all of that."

"Rand, here's a clue, I spent years ignoring people's opinion of me. Years ignoring people telling me what was wrong with me. When that's all you hear, hearing it once is enough and you just ignore the repetition. Look, I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

"What? Wait!"

"For what Rand? You told me about what people are saying. I can't stop them from talking; I can't do anything at all about it. Trying to do something about it will only cause them to talk more. People always talk. Sometimes it seems like that is all people do … talk, talk, talk. Well, let 'em. And then you ignore them. What else is there?"

I was struggling to get up off of the low mattress, my fat belly throwing my center of gravity way off. It didn't take much of a tug for Rand to keep me down.

"Kiri, I'm sorry. I over reacted. I should have given you a chance."

"To do what? Prove myself to you again? How many times do I have to do that Rand? I don't have a problem with that exactly but what's the goal here? I just want to know so I can get on with it. How many tests are there? How many times do I have to pass? How many more tests get added to the list if I fail once? Is the goal to get to a point where I'm not me anymore? I'd appreciate the chance to still be able to stand the person in the mirror; I spent too many years despising her to want to go back to that. So whoever it is you want me to be I still need to be able to tolerate her."

When he took too long to answer I started to get up and this time I managed it with at least some grace; and he didn't stop me. I'm not too sure I would have let him stop me at that point. I was tired. I was done. And I was hurting. I got down the stairs and went and crawled in bed. I just shut my eyes and I was out which surprised me.

But I didn't get to sleep long. Rand jerked away hard enough to wake me up from my own sound sleep. "Dang it Woofer, what the … ? Austin? What's wrong Buddy?"

"Rand I heard something outside."

"You sure it wasn't just the wind?"

"I waited for it to be just the wind. I wanted it to be just the wind. But I don't think it is. It … it doesn't sound like people but I don't know what it is."

Rand and I were both up and grabbing for our rifles then Rand slung his rifle and picked up his shotgun as well. Woofer was whining and that wasn't like him. Rand went up to the dormer and then came running down fast and coughing.

"There's a fire off to the NW. Still on the other side of US90 I think. I don't know how big it is but it's a smoky one. Austin, put Woofer on a leash and keep him inside. We can't let him run off in the dark. Kiri …"

"Just like we talked about. BOBs for each of us, and prepare to load the wagon with what is on the list we made."

He walked up to me and pulled me in for a hug. "We never got to finish fixing things, no matter what happens I just want you to know I … "

"Don't Rand. Let's just get through this."

"This" took the rest of the night to get through. The noise that woke Austin and Woofer was animals … all of them escaping the big fire, panicked, occasionally running into things in the dark. Lucky for us the fire didn't come near as close as we had thought, it was just that it smoked so heavily. I wound up breaking into some of the stuff that I had salvaged back at Itchetucknee to get to some paper face masks; the ones that you could wear to keep dust out of your lungs while mowing or cleaning or stuff like that. Even with wearing those masks most of the night I still taste smoke on the back of my throat.

Rand road Hatchet up to the end of the road at first light. He was up there only a moment before Hoss, Bradley, and Mitch came out of the thick smog along with four military guys. He brought them back to our place so that they could fill their canteens and wash their faces, all black except where bandanas had covered their nose and mouths. I kept busy refilling the pitcher used to fill their canteens and making corncakes they smeared with butter or sorghum. Even the military guys ate and acted very appreciative. I hope they don't get in trouble for accepting something from a civilian. I just figured they worked to help save our community it sure as heck doesn't bother me to feed them.

They left out after saying that it looked like a still set up in a section of planted pines exploded and caused the fire. A survivor of the explosion was found stumbling out of the smoke. The explosion itself was heard by several night patrols – one of them from the Henderson ranch, two from the military, and various neighborhood patrols – and they all converged and cooperated to do what they could. Trees were felled and dragged away and lots of shovels dug a temporary fire break. On one side a back fire was lit to keep the fire from spreading into a populated area.

We were lucky. There were only two deaths and both of them were directly attributable to the original still explosion. Lots of small injuries and some smoke inhalation but nothing major. One horse was lost when it panicked and ran into the fire instead of away from it. There was some property damage but nothing where anyone was currently living. A one lane bridge over a creek on a logging road has burnt down but it wasn't being used too much and had a wash out on one corner that could have taken it down at any moment anyway. So, while it could have been better there is no doubt that it could have been much worse.

At lunch we were all just exhausted. Austin fell asleep on the rug in the living room with Woofer beside him to keep him warm. I put a cover over him and then went to the kitchen in search of some caffeine. I knew I wasn't supposed to have it but I was desperate; I was practically walking into walls I was so tired. I found Rand with his head on his arm on the kitchen table. I found a quilt and draped it over his shoulders; he never even moved just started snoring. I washed my face and then went out to the porch and sat in the rocker and tried to stay awake, not all of us could sleep during the day at the same time with the animals out and raiders in the area. I set my rifle next to me and then took my notes and continued to work for about two hours. When I started to nod off I would get up and walk around the house or check on the livestock then I'd come sit back down for a while longer.

I was just coming back from refilling the water trough in the corral when I saw Rand walking towards me fast. "Have you slept?"

""What? No, of course not. I know we need to have someone … "

He sighed, "I didn't mean it like that Kiri. I meant you need to rest even more than I do. You shouldn't have let me sleep."

"It's too close to chore time and for me to get dinner started."

He looked like he wanted to object but instead he said, "OK, then come sit with me on the porch."

"Rand … "

"What's it gonna hurt to sit down? Unless it is sitting down with me?"

Now it was my turn to sigh but rather than answer I just went up to the porch with him following close behind. I tried to sit in the rocker but he swung me around and I landed in the two-seater porch swing with him sitting right beside me.

"Kiri, just how badly have I messed things up? Give me some hope that this can be fixed."

"Rand don't start, OK? I'm just not able to do … whatever it is you want from me with a straight head."

"I'm sorry Kiri. I know you aren't in any shape for this but … I just can't keep on this way. That stuff … the stuff with SueLinda at the swap meet … I never meant it to go as far as it did. I was just hacked and angry that you wouldn't see things my way. I wanted to make a point only you didn't … you wouldn't … God what a mess this has turned into."

Suddenly I couldn't seem to find my righteous indignation, all I knew is that I was tired of what was happening too. "Just forget about it Rand. I was showing my backside too. I just … just … I don't know Rand. Just let it go."

"I wish I could Kiri, I really do but something is really messed up. Look at you. I've never seen you like this. You've always reared right back at anyone, including me, that crossed the line. It's like you are just going through the motions. Like … like you don't care anymore."

"What do you want from me Rand?! I said you could forget about it. I said I was at fault too. Why talk it to death? You want it to go away, that's the only way I can figure to let it just go away."

"I don't want to just sweep it under the rug. I want to fix it."

"Argh! Great big gobs of gopher guts! Rumplestilskin! Aunt Fanny's fanny! Jumped up Jehosephat!" I was grinding my teeth and all but yelling.

Rand nearly choked and said, "What are you doing?!"

"I'm trying not to swear OK. That stupid booklet says that the baby can hear things even before it is born. I don't want the first thing my kid hears is its mother cussing a blue streak no matter if that is what I feel like doing right now."

Rand raked his fingers through his hair and then he sighed. "I'm going to be bald as a cue ball before I'm thirty. I'm sitting here trying to fix things and you're … you're … Argh!"

"Fix what? There is no fixing the fact that I'm never going to be able to be who you want me to be. Get it through your head already. I'll try but I'll never be Julia or your mother or whoever it is you are trying to mold me into. You'll either have to accept what I can do and let that be enough or tell me up front that it isn't going to be good enough and let's just get all of this over with. You know it isn't exactly easy changing myself to be … "

"I don't want you to change. I never asked you to change. I want you to be you."

"Bull. Total bull. If you didn't have a problem with me being me then you would have accepted that I was going to try and stay out of trouble at the swap meet. You would have trusted that I would follow through on my promise. But you don't and you didn't. It hurt but I accepted it and I'm not letting it hurt me anymore. You want … I don't know what to call what you want but I'll try and be that. I'm tired of fighting too you know. But I keep my promises and no few of them I made when we got married. I promised to honor and obey and stick it out through good times and bad. I'll do what it takes to keep my promises even if you … if no one … believes I'm capable of it. Because my promises mean something to me, that's why I don't make many of them and those I do make I don't make lightly. I may only be seventeen and an orphan with no family but I was raised right, I was raised that your honor and your word mean more than anything else you might own and that keeping your word is what determines what kind of person you are."

"I never said … "

"Don't even Rand … just don't even. Actions speak louder than words. Your actions have been screaming at me for a long while now, I just didn't want to hear what they were saying."

Rand was getting angry again too but we both turned when Austin came around the house and asked, "Is everything OK?"

I felt bad. I told the little guy that Rand and I were going to make things better for him; that he could feel safe here. He's been through so much and I don't want him to worry. "Yeah. Don't worry about it. I'm just tired and cranky. I need to get up and go fix dinner so why don't you help Rand get the animals taken care of. OK?"

"Sure Kiri! I'm not tired at all!" I was glad someone's world was still upright.

Dinner and evening chores went off without a hitch and I was finally able to find my quiet space inside myself. I wrapped myself up in it and could at least pretend like I was calm, cool, and collected. It also made it easier not to feel much of what I had been feeling out on the porch.

Despite Austin having said he wasn't tired he nearly fell asleep in the warm milk that I made for him. I checked after he went to go get ready for bed to find he'd fallen across the mattress still dressed in everything but his boots and belt. Woofer was curled up beside him.

I walked into the living room and said, "Austin is already out. Didn't even make it into his PJs."

"Let him sleep."

"OK, I'm going to …"

"The dormer room with me. We aren't finished talking."

I was outraged … or as outraged as my fatigue would let me get. "You've got to be kidding me! Rand I'm tired. I'm not in a real good place to talk anymore. I need to go to bed."

"We both do but not until we work this out."

"I already told you … "

"I know what you already told me and I didn't like it."

"Well that's just too bad. I'm tired and I'm … going … to … bed."

Well, that didn't work. He hefted me up and said, "Don't fight me. I don't want to drop you or fall down the stairs."

"Are you crazy?! Put me down before you hurt your back. I'm the size of an elephant!"

"No you're not. And don't think you are going to be able to get away from me either. I'll flaming tie you down if I have to and hang the consequences. We are talking this out and I mean now!"

I was so tired I nearly cried in frustration but I wasn't going to let him see that. When he finally put me down I sat in the chair. Or I should I say tried to sit in the chair. My backside had no sooner hit the seat cushion that he picked me up and sat me on the bed and then sat down beside me, put his leg over mine and grabbed my hand. "Don't run away Kiri."

"I'm not running away Rand. Have I left the house? Have I gone anywhere? I'm right here despite the fact that I want to be down in the bedroom sleeping."

"Actually yeah. Yeah you have run away. Your body might be here in body but you aren't, not really."

"God Rand … don't go all philosophical on me. Just spit it out so I can agree to whatever it is you want and then go to bed."

"See? That's what I mean. You automatically say that you'll agree to what I say, no questions asked, just to pacify me. You don't even want to discuss this."

"Frankly Rand I don't. I'm trying to keep the peace. I promised no more scenes, no more arguments. I won't be an embarrassment. I'm tired of worrying about it. I'm tired of having it thrown in my face that …"

"Kiri stop. Stop. Please just stop."

"Will you make up your mind?! First you pester the heck out of me to talk and now when I'm talking and telling you that I'm capitulating you want me to shut up. What is it you want?!"

"I want you back!"

"No you don't. You don't trust who I was. I was an embarrassment every time we went out in public."

"I never said that!"

"You didn't have to. Constantly dogging me. Constantly checking up on me. Making sure I hadn't started any fights. Making sure I wasn't acting like a fool. And no … you never said it like that but that's what it amounts to. I didn't want to see it though it's something I've been afraid of from the very beginning. It just finally came out at the swap meet. You don't trust me to act like I ought to. Now it is time for me to deal with it. I don't like being an embarrassment and a problem for you so I'm going to change. Like I told you, I doubt I'll ever measure up to … up to …" I was seeing spots … why was I seeing spots? Then I felt something wet on my upper lip and when I wiped at it I came away with a smear of red. I kept looking at it trying to put two and two together only I'd forgotten how to do basic math.

The next thing I remember hearing is, "If her blood pressure is back to normal then why is she still unconscious and so pale? And I still don't understand what the bloody nose was about."

"Pregnant women's blood volume increases right along with their pregnancy. Hormones increase as well causing changes within the body. Bloody noses are common for many pregnant women. And with the fluctuation in blood pressure a bloody nose is to be expected. However, that is something that needs to be watched to make sure it isn't a precursor to something more serious. As for the rest of it, you said she kept complaining of being tired and wasn't acting like herself. I know you two had a disagreement and that could be responsible for … "

"Are you saying that I caused this?"

"No. I am saying however that stress and fatigue are a bad combination, especially for Kiri. She has a … unique way of dealing with her stress. We both know she is action oriented, she also tends to internalize a lot rather than letting people see what she is really thinking. If she is trying to change how she responds to certain stimuli then perhaps it is causing her more stress rather than less. Frankly Rand there aren't too many women I know that would not have been able to act as unaffected by the displays going on Saturday as she did. And we both know she had to have been dying to … to … God only knows what. Everyone kept expecting a major blow up and thought you were crazy … or cruel … to be egging her on like that. What were you thinking? Especially in her condition."

"Yeah, I know I messed up. But it was more than that she's just … shut me out. She hasn't acted like herself at all. She won't …"

"Rand, let me tell you something that few people know. You remember my wife?"

"Yeah."

"You remember how calm and patient she always was?"

"Yeah, she was real soft spoken and …"

"It was all a lie."

"Huh? I mean what?"

"Tessa was …" and he laughed sadly. "She chose to act like that because that is what she thought I needed for my ministry. She didn't want to embarrass me. But the truth? When our doors were closed and she could be sure that no one was listening she used to say what she really felt about some people and I mean tell it in graphic detail and technicolor. She had very little tolerance for some of the things that I saw yet she didn't express that outside of our house because she didn't want to cause problems. She tried to be supportive of my calling but she had a hard time fitting into the stereotypical role of minister's wife. And when Kenny got old enough to start repeating things he heard at home she stopped letting herself go except late at night when our bedroom door closed. And after a while not even then."

"I … I don't know what to say."

"There isn't anything that can be said. I let Tessa make that choice even though I knew it was a bad one because it was easier on me, it was more comfortable. But the truth was that it was taking a toll on Tessa, on me, and on our marriage. It got to be that Tessa didn't feel like she could be herself about anything and we eventually stopped talking to each other about anything meaningful. Our marriage was floundering and I was at a loss as to what to do about it … I mean I knew, but I was too afraid of what people would say if she really let loose. I felt it was all or nothing and Tessa picked up on that. And because she did still love me, despite our problems, she tried to be what she thought I needed no matter how badly it hurt her. Then the flu came and … and I'll never get the chance to fix things. I'll have to go to my grave knowing that I missed out on … on something that could have been better, deeper, more meaningful."

"I'm not asking Kiri to change!"

"If what you are saying is what is happening then she's gotten the idea from some place. Maybe no one said it outright but … "

I'd had enough, even if I did feel like crud and wanted to go back to sleep. "I swear you people are too nosy to be believed. I didn't ask for your help. I didn't ask for anyone to take up a cause on my behalf. Just … "

Ken came over and started checking my pulse. I wanted to rip my arm out of his grip but I didn't seem to have the energy. "Hmmm. Better but I want you to stay in bed the rest of the day, sleeping preferably. And no more pushing your body to the limits. You're growing a baby and your body needs everything it can get for a while longer yet. No skimping on meals either. Eat smaller meals more often if you are having trouble eating a full meal three times a day. Eat the high iron foods we've discussed before but keep your diet balanced as well; not too much sugar, watch the fats and to process all the protein you are eating I want you to drink as much water as you can stand and then a little more on top of that."

"Oh, go away," I can remember groaning. "Just once it would be nice if you came by and didn't leave me with a list of do's and don'ts a yard long."

"Sorry," he said in a voice that said even louder that he really wasn't as he and Rand left the room.

I rolled on my side and then blinked them all the way open when I saw two sets of eyes peering over the mattress edge. Austin and Woofer both looked worried. "I'm fine. If you want I'll fix pancakes for breakfast in just a minute."

"It's way passed breakfast. It's almost dinner."

"What?! " I said as I tried to sit up. That's when Rand walked back in.

"Ken's gone and … Whoa! No getting up until tomorrow. Remember?"

Austin said anxiously, "We didn't wake her up Rand, honest! She just opened her eyes and … "

"I know Buddy. Look, there's some dinner on the table. Why don't you take Woofer and grab something to eat. We'll pop some popcorn in a little while."

The boy and dog both scrambled to the kitchen leaving Rand and I looking at each other. I sighed and rolled over, still tired.

Rand sat on the bed. "I never wanted you to change Kiri. I just … I just want to keep you - you and the baby - safe. That's my job."

"I don't want to be anyone's job Rand."

"I know, I'm not saying this right. Look, maybe I didn't handle it very well but you took it the wrong way too. I don't want you to change. I want you to be careful. I didn't mean to make you feel like I didn't trust you. I do trust you, it's everybody else I don't trust."

I sighed and said, "Fine."

"No, it's not fine. Things really got messed up this time. Too many bad things are happening too often and too fast. They are starting to bleed into how we … I don't know … work together, work things out, whatever you want to call it."

"Just let it go Rand. We're both just tired. And now look at this. I'm stuck in this stupid bed with so much to do. I messed up again."

"No. Don't think that. Ken says it is stress related on top of exhaustion. He's seen some other women doing this too. And he says that you're young so that only complicates things."

"What does that have to do with anything for Pete's sake? There were plenty of pregnant girls in highschool and none of them got laid up on bed rest like this."

"Really? Highschools down in Tampa must have been … never mind … Ken says that technically you're still … you're still growing. Your body is still a kid somewhat and … "

"Bull snot … I've been this same height since I was twelve. And I'm about as blossomed out as I'm going to get."

"Hey, if you think it makes me feel too good for Ken to tell me you're still basically a growing kid it doesn't. But I get what he means. Bottom line is you need … I need to help you get … more rest. You can't keep going the way you've been going. You have to stay in the best shape you can from here on out because you are going to need it as the baby gets bigger and you get closer to … to … going into labor and stuff. Most of all though you need me to … "

"Rand, it's fine just let me … "

"No. It's not fine. I didn't mean to make you feel like I didn't trust you. I have to get you to understand that."

"You said that all ready. Just let it …"

"I'm not going to just let it go. I need to know Kiri. When did it start going bad? When did you start feeling that you embarrassed me and that I didn't trust you?"

"Why do you have to be so pig headed about this?!"

"I could say that's the pot calling the kettle black but I won't. Listen real careful to what I'm saying. The reason why I won't let this go is because it means too much to me … you mean too much to me."

And with that, doggone it, the flood gates opened. They weren't big noisy tears but they were tears I couldn't stop and it would have made me mad if I'd had the energy.

"Aw Babe. OK, I won't bother you about this anymore tonight but this isn't over. We are going to get this taken care of."

I think I slept for a little while again. I woke up and everything was real quiet. I looked over to see Rand with the headphones on listening to the radio. He jumped a little bit when he looked over and saw me awake and then two other heads popped up over the end of the bed. The inseparable duo were camped out at Rand's feet … literally camped out with a sleeping bag, flashlight, the whole nine yards.

"I said they could sleep in here tonight," Rand said as he raised his eyebrows asking me silently if it was OK.

"So long as they don't expect me to haul my fat belly to sleep down there too. And no singing _Kumbayah_ or _The Bear Went Over the Mountain_. And the latrines are thata way. Got it?"

That got a laugh from Austin and the two heads disappeared again. "Anything on the radio?" I asked.

"Same old mess only more of it. You want to listen?"

"Not really. Not tonight. I think … I think I just want to write for a while."

Rand brought over my traveling desk and Austin brought the wind up lamp while I sat up and tried to arrange the pillows. Everyone eventually went back to what they were doing and I've been writing ever since. Austin went to sleep fairly quickly and Rand is asleep in the chair with the headphones still on. And there isn't much ink left in the bottom of the bottle so it looks like I'm going to have to give it up too.

I know things happen so that we can learn things and be better people but I have to say that the last few days are going on my list of days that I would never want to live over, not even in my dreams.


	85. Chapter 84

Chapter 84

 **March 9** **th** – Today I have kept quietly busy. There has also been a quiet between Rand and I; it hasn't been comfortable but it hasn't been uncomfortable either. It's more like a … a … a necessary bit of quiet; not before the storm but what comes after it. I think we are both trying to find a balance between us, find our own personal balance. I sure don't want to rock the boat right now; things just feel too delicate, like one wrong move and the whole thing will shatter beyond repair.

I wonder if Daddy and Momma ever had problems like this? Probably not. Momma was the epitome of the good wife; fantastic cook, great housekeeper, organized (well, most of the time), loads of patience, wise, great mother, grew and preserved a lot of our food even living in the suburbs like we did. I could go on and on. Sometimes I wonder what she would make of me if she was still around. I remember hearing that Daddy was a little wild when they first got married and that Momma finally told him to start coming home earlier or to not bother coming home at all. Supposedly this happened when she was pregnant with me. Maybe it is just that by the time I was old enough to notice they had gotten their act together and worked out their differences. Huh, that's something I never thought about before. To me Momma and Daddy were near about perfect. Maybe Rand and I do still stand a chance.

What I do know after thinking about it all day is the same thing I eventually learned despite the years of therapy that tried to burn it out of me is that I have got to be me, warts and all. I'm not saying that I don't have room to learn and change – to grow into a better person – but I still have to be true to my core beliefs and personality. The core beliefs part isn't a problem because Rand and I are pretty evenly yoked in that respect. No, it's the personality part that I'm afraid is the real issue.

I can only fake stuff for so long … well, really not long at all if I'm honest with myself. It doesn't take much for me to get flaky around the edges. People drive me nuts because I don't feel I can be myself around them. I'm more afraid of hurting their feelings than them hurting mine and constantly having to tiptoe around people's "issues" gets old real fast. One of the guidance counselors at school said I was like a bull in a china shop; rather than walking carefully around all the glass cases of delicate objects I tend to plow right in and then plow right back out. I've just never been overly impressed with sacred cows. I don't set out to do it on purpose, I've tried no few times to be easier on people, but somehow I always wind up losing patience with whole process of "appropriate social interaction" if required to do it for more than a few hours at a time. I don't think that Rand minds that part so much but maybe that is part of it. I don't know. I know we need to talk but I'm kind of afraid of what gets said.

All of this has been running through my head all day long and the only way I've been able to stand it is because my hands have stayed as busy as my brain. No hard labor; I haven't felt up to it and Rand and Austin pretty much made sure that it wasn't going to happen anyway. Today was supposed to be cleaning day but I just couldn't abide being closed up inside the house any more. I opted to spend most of the day out of doors, we even ate on the lanai since the day was so nice. I think that has helped clear some of the cobwebs from my brain.

First thing I cooked some beans in the ground. Austin had asked me about that when Rand had been telling him stories of how we met. I hadn't done it in quite some time and it seemed kind of appropriate to do it again. It was just pinto beans but they turned out really good.

After that I needed to start some new seed trays. Problem … I've used up most of my pots and I don't really have that many sheets of newspaper left to make paper pots with. I've even used up the bottoms that I cut off of the two-liter soda bottles. But I'm trying to get ahead and use seed as economically as possible by not direct sowing and then having to thin the seedlings out by hand. That's when I had a goofy thought.

Rand still has piles (and piles and piles) of salvage materials stacked around. The animals escaping the fire kept running into the piles which is what woke Austin (whose bedroom is toward the front of the house) in the first place. One of the particularly noisy piles is a stack aluminum rain gutters. I took short sections that were already messed up for some reason and used a hammer and awl to poke holes in the bottom of the gutter; this is for drainage. Then I filled the gutter well decayed compost. They weren't the prettiest planters I've ever seen, and some have a tendency to want to lay on their side (fixed that with pieces of wood), but they do the job.

Rand laughed when he saw my scrap yard planters and then stopped, worried that he had hurt my feelings. See, this is what I'm afraid of. That we can't get back to where we were so comfortable with one another and are unable to laugh out of fear of causing a problem. I didn't hide my feelings quick enough and Rand saw. He apologized for hurting my feelings and then I had to go through the long drawn out you didn't, are you sure, I'm positive explanation that I'd been upset by the fact that he thought he couldn't even laugh with me anymore and not at being laughed at. Then he got worried that he seemed over sensitive and had started a problem that way. It would be nice if we could just make up quick like we used to.

After lunch, a mac-n-cheese kind of casserole thing that I threw together with the help of some LTS pasta from a #10 can, I got a little sleepy. I'm still not up to full steam but I didn't want to waste the daylight hours sleeping. My next project came from something that Austin's Peepaw used to do.

Daddy and Momma had gone all out as they furnished the house. They knew they needed to do it while Daddy was still working or it wasn't likely to happen so on the windows they put these really nice horizontal blinds made of thick PVC. They were dual purpose, kept heat and UV rays out and kept light in. Those blinds combined with the blackout curtains and the shutters on the outside of the house provided a great deal of security and privacy. But from the salvage houses we had a lot of those less expensive horizontal window blinds, the kind with the skinny shade slats on them. Well Austin's grandfather would take the skinny slats, cut them in lengths averaging about eight inches and turn them into plant markers. I cut one end into a point and then used a permanent marker to write the name and variety of veggie or herb that I had planted. One blind provided more plant markers than I would probably ever need.

The pinto beans and rice made for an easy dinner and clean up which was something I appreciated good times or bad. After dinner I puttered around while Rand and Austin put the animals away. When they came in we had a quiet evening. It's now so warm we don't have to have a fire.

Austin went to bed a few minutes ago and Rand has that look on his face, the one that says he wants to talk. Oh brother, here we go.

 **March 10** **th** – Despite the beautiful sky it's been a nasty day. If Rand and I hadn't done a lot of talking and making up last night this day would have been even worse. I stumbled through part of the day for sure as I was just so tired but it was a tired worth getting.

Things are … healing I guess you would call it. We're working on making things better. I'm trying to understand his driving need to be a protector and understand that it is his way of securing his future, our future, and all of those man dreams guys seem to have. I'm trying to remember that he's doing this out of love and not just to be controlling. He's trying to understand and remember that while his intent might be pure, and that I don't begrudge him "authority" in my life, and I appreciate all of his hard work, how he goes about being protective makes it appear that he has no confidence in me and doesn't trust me in the big things. He also … and this part really was hard for me to talk to him about … well, when he showed off with SueLinda it hurt me. I didn't want to admit it but it felt good to fess up to it and tell him how the spectacle made me feel. It hasn't made me necessarily trust him any less – I don't really expect he would have taken it all the way just to spite me – but at the same time now it is harder to trust him emotionally with the big stuff.

Oh gosh, writing it out sounds so stupid but … it's just I've never had the chance to be vain about my looks. I never got asked out on a regular date, or to a school dance, or had the chance to wear a really pretty dress and heels, or superficial stuff like that. I know I don't look bad precisely but I never will call myself pretty in a traditional kind of way. My eyes have a funny slant to them, my nose is small, and my mouth and teeth are big; don't even get me started on all my scars. Sure, my eyes are green most of the time but sometimes they are just plain brown like my hair. I'm short and top heavy and the two don't make for such a great combination when you are trying to find clothes that fit. About the only thing I don't have any complaint about is my ears though I guess those can be pretty important since they stick on either side of your head. But nice looking ears don't mean much when my ADP is acting up.

I thought I was over worrying that Rand would get turned off by how I look but now, I don't know. SueLinda is one of those classic beauties. Even the rough life she has chosen doesn't seem to have changed her looks that much. Her hair is a honey blonde that didn't come out of a bottle. She's got great skin, perfectly straight white teeth and these incredible blue eyes. And she's tall. Why did she have to be tall? Tall and willowy with just enough on both ends so that she looks like a woman ought to look.

When I finally got up my courage to say something to him – he is awful persistent when he sets his mind to talking things out – and told him she made me feel like a gnome, and not necessarily the cute garden variety either, he blew a gasket. Of all the things to get mad about this had to be the strangest in my opinion. He wasn't mad at me either, he was mad at himself. I won't write about what came next – that's between Rand and I – all I will say is that he made me feel better. I still feel like a fat heffalump but it really kinda seems that Rand is partial to fat heffalumps so there it is.

As far as the rest of it goes, some of what Rand is feeling is fear. He's more scared about me being pregnant than he has let on and that was hard for him to fess up. He didn't like admitting it because he feels like he is somehow letting me down, somehow being weaker than he should be. And the stuff that happened to Laurabeth, well that just has him in knots. He knows good and well what the risks are and he knows if something happens to him I'm going to be in a bad way and he just doesn't know how to make it better. That stuff does bother me but kind of in a distant way. There isn't much I can do about it so I just stuff it in a mental closet and deal with what I can do something about. I think part of the problem is that there's no one around to tell him that it is going to be OK and that if something does go wrong there will be a hospital and doctors and nurses that will help fix things.

I'm not sure what we can do to make the scary parts better but I told him that I'd rather do something concrete like make lists and gather supplies for the birth and the baby than to have him trying to do something about me and for me all the time. More letting me participate in the doing and less gilded bars. Sometimes it feels like my spirit is suffocating and that isn't good for either of us though I hadn't admitted that even to myself. And I have a feeling that keeps wiggling around like a maggot in my brain so that I can't ignore it that Rand and I are going to need each other more than ever, that he is going to have to let me help whether he likes it or not.

We thought that our problems had gotten just as bad as they could get and that we were turning the corner so that we could start improving our lot. The swap meets, the businesses that are springing up, the garden, all of the work he is being contracted to do; and even Austin coming to live with us are all improvements over the way things have been. But it looks like we are about to experience more hard times; or maybe that is dangerous times.

With the thawing of the north, a lot of refugees have come to find that the food programs that some politicians had promised them are never going to materialize. They are hungry, cold, malnourished, sick … you name it it's out there. Just like when massive numbers of people left the big cities when the rumors of imminent nuclear war occurred, stripping the land like locusts of anything they could get their hands on, there is now another exodus occurring. This exodus has nothing to do with cities and has to do with weather and natural resources. Many thousands of survivors of the pandemic have died over the winter from the cold; just as many have died of disease and the lack of advanced medical interventions. Starvation took no small number as well.

The retched refugees of winter are heading south in some mistaken belief that places like Florida have some magical formula that will cure their ills, that the resources are somehow just laying around waiting to be salvaged. To the contrary, we are having enough trouble feeding ourselves and storing enough for later, how are we supposed to take care of anyone else, especially the large numbers that are expected to head this way? The federal government has already taken over most of the commercial citrus groves here in Florida for the benefit of the active duty personnel. Out west, commercial grain fields are being managed by the feds. Commercial dairies and livestock have met the same fate. We've heard via the radio that some farmers do their best to hide their livestock so that it can't be requisitioned by the feds in their redistribution of resources mandates.

Rand worries a little about the fields of veggies and grains we are trying to grow because if the feds start using satellite imaging or airplanes to find crops then we are in big trouble. That sounds so totally sci-fi to me and not more than a little paranoid. I'm not sure what to say about it, how to respond when he brings it up. I suppose it is possible but still, if they are basically laying off the military would they really still be capable of pulling that kind of stunt on what amounts to your basic subsistence farmer? It's really a weird thought for me to wrap my head around.

I'm not sure what we can do. Rand is talking about some type of perimeter to that covers all 120 acres that we now call ours. I just can't imagine it. Parts of the new eighty acre square are already bordered with large cedar trees that were planted along the fence row. There is also a section of that fencing that it would take a tractor to get through because of all the saw brier and Devil's Walking Stick all tangled together. Sections of fence along the original forty are like that as well. And we are fairly hidden back in here … but hungry people are desperate people and if someone overhears something or even just stumbles over our location we could be in big trouble.

But I just can't spend all day worrying about all of that. I know we need to do something and Rand has a couple of ideas, but it isn't going to happen overnight no matter how badly Rand might want it to. There just aren't enough hours in the day much less people committed to seeing it gets done.

I wanted to distract Rand from his worries for a little while at least and I was kind of starving by the time it came to prepare dinner so I made a pan of polenta lasagna. It seemed as good a way as any to start transitioning to using more whole grains instead of refined foods. I mean I had already been doing that all along but it's been hard to give up the habit of using fine white flour for everything.

First you have to make the polenta and you do this by taking four cups of boiling water in a medium sausce pan and slowly adding one and a half cups of yellow cornmeal, stirring constantly with a wire whisk. Then you reduce the head to low and stir in four teaspoons of finely chopped fresh marjoram. Thank goodness my pots of herbs didn't get destroyed by the freezes we had. You simmer that for fifteen to twenty minutes or until the polenta thickens and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Spread the polenta in a 13 x 9 inch ungreased baking sheet and cover and chill it for one hour while you make the rest of the dish. This firms it up.

You make the rest of the dish by heating oil in a skillet over medium heat. You are going to cook and stir one pound of fresh mushrooms (Mrs. Withrow sent these over as the boy who lives with her had picked way more than they could use), some chopped onion, , and a clove of minced garlic for five minutes or until vegetables are crisp tender. You are supposed to stir in one half cup of mozzarella cheese but I had to use the white farmer's cheese that I make and it was a reasonable substitute especially after I also added two tablespoons of fresh chopped basil, one tablespoon of fresh chopped oregano, and an eighth of a teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper.

The next part I cheated on a little bit. I took Momma's old blender and snuck up to the dormer room with it. The blender held two medium red bell peppers, chopped and seeded, fresh from the green house and a quarter cup of water. I plugged the blender into the inverter and ran it just long to get them smooth. I could have done it by hand with that old hand mixer of Mom's but I was tired.

While your oven is heating to around 350 degrees F spray a 11 x 7 inch baking pan with non-stick spray or grease it, whatever you have to do to keep things from sticking. Cut the cold polenta into twelve squares and arrange six of them in the bottom of the prepared dish. Spread half of the bell pepper puree and then half of the vegetable mixture on top of that; and then sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese if you have it. Place the remaining six polenta squares on top of that layer and then top that with the remaining pepper and vegetable mixtures and sprinkle a little more cheese on top. You bake this mess for about twenty minutes or until the cheese is melted and the exposed pieces of polenta are golden brown. It is filling and very good. The funny thing is that I never had to explain to Rand and Austin that there weren't any tomatoes in the lasagna, they didn't even seem to notice; red was red and good was good.

 **March 11** **th** – Doing laundry isn't exactly a breeze but it sure is easier with the new set up Rand built, I was done in less than half the time it used to take and that was with the extra laundry that Austin creates. That left me time to work in the garden a bit and to get back to planning which I did while I pressed our clothes for the church service tomorrow. Rand is dreading it something awful. I sympathize with him, I really do, but at the same time there is a part of me that is secretly hoping that if he gets any pinches from anyone it reinforces that messing around to try and get me to react could backfire big time. And now I'll shut up about that spiteful part of me; I really don't need to encourage it any.

In the original garden patch things are growing really well, even better than last season. The new garden areas aren't growing as well but they still aren't anything to sneeze at. The part of the equation though that I hadn't taken into account as much as I should is that there is only one of me and that one is getting fatter and slower by the day. Austin is a big help but I feel so foolish sometimes having to tilt this way and that to see what is just at my feet.

Funny thing happened after we finally went to bed last night. I was three-quarters asleep with Rand's arm draped over me when he sits up, jerks the covers off me, turns the lamp on in my face and almost shouts, "It moved!" Not particularly happy to be ripped out of near sleep I still started laughing at the look on Rand's face.

"Duh! I told you he'd been moving around for a while."

"Yeah. Yeah … but …"

"Uh, you going to be sick or something? Your face looks awful funny."

"Ha … ha … ha. It just startled me is all. Make it do it again."

"OK, one our baby is not an 'it' and two, he moves when he feels like it."

"How do you know it's a boy?"

"I guess I don't but that's better than calling the baby an 'it.'"

I lay down and went back to sleep. I don't know how long Rand stayed up waiting for the baby to move again. Now every time I turn around he's there putting his hands on my stomach. It's a little embarrassing but if it makes him happy. But if he does that in front of anyone else I think I may just have to whack him with a broom or something to knock some sense back into him.

 **March 12** **th** – I got lots of sympathy at the church service today and Rand got a lot of kidding. Well, most of it was kidding; Momma O and Mrs. Withrow had him flanked and really laid into him for about a good fifteen minutes. Missy was barely speaking to him until I asked her to knock it off. It still took her a while to warm up to him but I think I managed to get everything smoothed out. Well, smoothed out with everyone but Laurabeth and even that seems like it isn't quite as bad as it used to be.

Laurabeth doesn't look good. I can't imagine that is a surprise all things considered but it goes beyond just her physical appearance. I don't know how to put into words but if there was such a thing as an energy vampire I would say that she's a victim of one that has a deep hold on her. For long moments of a time I could see the old Laurabeth trying to peak through, trying to come back to life and then something would set her off and it would look like she would lose the will to live; twice when she didn't think anyone was looking something twisted and sick looked out at the world wearing Laurabeth's face. Then I saw Ron bend down and pick Stevie up from her lap and it startled her back to herself.

Alicia, Missy, and I found a quiet spot and did some talking. The men left us alone because they thought we were talking about birthing and babies. The women left us alone because they thought it was family checking to see if Rand and I had really patched things up. It was family trouble all right, just not about Rand and I. Uncle George and Ron Harbinger are having a … well, calling it a disagreement right now isn't really what is going on but it is something. They each have their own idea on how to help Laurabeth.

Missy said her dad is going down the same road he took with Janet. He's being super protective to the point where you can see she has no reason to try to get better. He makes all kinds of excuses for her behavior and generally would rather warn people off than deal with Laurabeth's problems. Ron on the other hand keeps trying to tug her in the other direction, hold her accountable for her actions, force her to participate in constructive things going on around her. He doesn't abuse her but he does take the baby away from her when she appears to be in certain moods or behaving in a certain way.

Missy wanted to know what I thought. She just flat out said that since I'd been in therapy before I should have some opinion on it. For about two seconds I wanted to hit her but in the end I figure Missy is just blunt to a fault and considering I'm pretty much like that myself I would be a hypocrite for objecting at this point. So I told them. My honest opinion is that Ron has the better approach than Uncle George. It may seem cruel and maybe he'll need to watch that he doesn't go all stick-and-carrot all the time, but letting Laurabeth just get away with things because we pity her is not healthy. She's grieving and may even be unbalanced, I don't know, but reinforcing bad behaviors isn't going to help her.

When I asked them why, if Uncle George was so sure that his way was best, he didn't kick Ron out of the house they said it was because of Stevie.

Alicia whispered, "Laurabeth needs Stevie and Stevie needs Laurabeth. Uncle George knows it and Ron knows it. There have been other women that offered to wet nurse Stevie but Ron … it's weird … it's like he is doing everything he can in spite of how Laurabeth is acting to make sure that Stevie can stay with her."

Missy added, "Weird isn't the word for it. I was worried that he was trying to turn Laurabeth into Julia and flat out asked him about it."

"Missy!" Alicia gasped, shocked.

I was thinking kudos to Missy for caring to do it. She said, "Well, what I was supposed to do? Wait until something bad happened and then make some kind of excuse for why I didn't? So I asked him. It's one of the few times lately that I've seen him lose that stone marble look off of his face. You know how slow he talks lately, like he's struggling to get every syllable out. _'No. No, I wouldn't do that to her. I messed up with Julia and it cost her her life even if it took the long way around for it to happen. I … I don't want to hurt Laurabeth but I think … Stevie needs her … my son needs Laurabeth and she needs him. I just want to fix it so my son gets what he needs and since Laurabeth is what he needs then I'm going to do my best for her too so that she can be there for Stevie.'_ I have to tell you I never thought I would hear those kinds of words out of the mouth of a Harbinger, much less Ron Harbinger."

"God moves in mysterious ways," I muttered after a second.

"Oh Lord girl, don't go all Amen pew on us!"

I had to laugh at the expression on Missy's face. "No, not really. It's just something I can remember one of grandmother's sisters saying pretty regular. But you have to admit it's true."

"True or not I still don't understand why it had to happen much less why it had to happen to Laurabeth, she was the best of us. She was always the good girl and did everything dad expected her to and then some."

"Sometimes asking why doesn't help. There are some things that we just won't understand here on Earth I think. I had to stop asking why my family had to die; it was making it too hard for me to live. I haven't forgotten about them or anything like that but I had to accept their deaths and … and … get rid of the chains I had wrapped myself up in. Now I can have the memories of them with me all the time without the pain the chains used to cause."

Alicia said, "Kiri, I wish there was some way that you could talk to Laurabeth."

"I'm no one special Alicia. And besides, Laurabeth isn't ready. She has the right to grieve and no one should try and take that away from her. Eventually she'll get to the point … "

"Talking about me behind my back? Not very sisterly," Laurabeth sneered in a dead sounding voice.

Missy and Alicia were actually afraid and that's probably what gave me the courage to turn around and confront Laurabeth. She had Stevie in her arms.

"Sorry Laurabeth. It's hard not to talk about the people you care about when you are worried about them."

She kept the mulish expression on her face but she looked less like she wanted a fight. "Well don't. How would you know how I feel anyway? You've still got your husband and baby … and I hate you for it. Hate you, hate you, hate you."

"I expected as much. But since I lost my parents and little brother, my aunt and uncle, and who knows how many other family members since I haven't heard from them you are being more than a little blind if you really can't see how I would know how you feel."

"Oh shut up, it's not the same at all."

"It might not be exactly the same but it does give me a point of reference. And all I have to do is imagine what you must be going through and I get all messed up in the head."

My admission threw her off her stride and she just tucked Stevie into the crook of her arm a little more securely. Ron came up and asked, "If you're tired I'll take Stevie for a little while."

"No! No. I … I'm fine. A little walk did me good and see? And Stevie looks like he enjoyed it too."

Ron just stared at her. "OK. But you didn't tell your dad where you were going and he got worried. You shouldn't do that."

"Oh, I just forgot. I won't forget again Ron. I won't."

"Don't tell me that, tell him. Come on, I'll walk back with you. You haven't eaten any lunch yet and you're looking pale again."

After they left Missy turned to me and said, "See what we mean? That can't be normal."

"Maybe not but I don't think Ron means any harm in it. He does seem to have her best interests at heart even if it is for Stevie's sake."

Alicia said, "Uh oh."

We both looked to see what was up and a bunch of the men were congregated around a radio Mr. Coffey's son had brought. Atlanta is burning.


	86. Chapter 85

Chapter 85

 **March 13** **th** – I felt better today than I have in a long time with absolutely no reason for that to be true. Go figure. On the other hand I've gotten quite a bit accomplished or at least started and that offsets the news we heard on the radio.

When I said yesterday that Atlanta was burning I meant that literally. Some type of major explosion occurred downtown and then spread outwards from there, igniting all that hadn't already burned before in the previous riots. The Nation of Islam headquarters is rumored to have been the original target and was destroyed in the initial explosion and who knows how many lives have been lost over the last couple of days. They say evidence of the fire can be seen for miles in all directions but since we are five hours away from Atlanta's location … or should I say where Atlanta used to be … there is no way we are going to see it go up.

Unlike us, Georgia has been dry as a bone and even a small spark floating on the breeze will ignite another fire if it lands on fertile ground, and most ground is ripe for a fire in Georgia right now, the cold, dry winter only dried things out even more than the drought had.

Mr. Henderson and Ram think that the fire may slow the migration out of the north for a while but after that it may actually increase the numbers heading this direction since there will be even less salvageable goods along the main I75 corridor. Ram also expects some retaliation by some militant groups and it looks like the local troops are preparing for the possibility. There have been all types of conjecture on what caused the explosion but due to its size nothing quite sounds right yet. The best one yet was one that I heard Bill and Ram formulate standing by the wagon. They think that a previously planted terrorist bomb was accidentally activated … either through tampering or through some other type of accident.

The men … and a few of the women … could have talked that subject to death for the rest of the day but we all had to head home. We had to listen to it all through lunch and clean up and then I had to listen to Rand's wonderings off and on through the rest of the day. He listened to the radio late into the night; I had intended on staying up with him but I fell asleep in spite of myself.

We woke to find that Austin and Woofer had snuck into our room during the night and had slept at the foot of the bed. I was worried that he was sick but he said he'd had a dream the house was on fire and then couldn't go back to sleep. I looked at Rand who nodded his head and he eased up on the talk today. Austin still asked if he could camp out in our room and since it has been storming pretty bad for several hours now we told him one more night then it was back to a real bed so he could get some rest. He's down there now. We could make him more comfortable but Rand is worried that if we do that we will only give him more reason to want to sleep in our room instead of his. He said that Mick had gone through a stage like that and it had taken him and Brendon forever to get him to go back to his own bed because they kept making it so easy on him to sleep in their room.

This morning I decided it was time to shake off whatever has been holding me down. Rand and I are working on seeing what the other needs and not just assuming we know and while that gets a little silly on occasion we are doing better. That's a relief and then some. I even managed to make Rand get a little … um, touchy feely … out in the barn when I brought him some cold mint tea as he stacked the wood that he and Austin had been chopping.

After a bit of his silliness – Austin had gone inside to grab some oatmeal cookies from the jar I try to keep filled with snacks and such – Rand said, "You look like you are feeling better."

"I do feel better."

"Really?"

"Yes really so stop worrying so much. What do you have planned for the rest of the day?"

"I'm going to have Austin muck the stables and clean out the chicken run while I run the cultivator. I want to get our stuff squared away for a couple of more days and then I have about six people who want to barter for work. I almost hate to do it because it means taking time away from our own projects but …"

"I know, it means getting stuff in trade that we won't have to grow ourselves. How are the grain fields looking?"

"Better than expected all things considered. We've lost some places here and there but now that I know where the low spots are I can avoid putting seed down in those areas. Say a month, give or take a few days, and we should be able to harvest and then turn around and get ready to plant several fields in sorghum. We just need to get some dry weather."

Austin came out and we all set out to do the work we had set for ourselves this day. Rand and Austin wanted to bring in one more load of wood … I can go through some wood when the canners are going … and I headed into the house to make Hoppin' John Soup for lunch.

Fix some rice, the thicker you want the soup the more rice you add. Brown up a little sausage, about a quarter pound, and I made that from fresh squirrel sausage that I had mixed up yesterday and put into the cooler. To the drained sausage I added half cup of chopped onion, a half pound of peeled and chopped turnips, two peeled and chopped carrots, a half teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of ground pepper. Brown all of this over medium and then turn it down and simmer it for about seven minutes. Next add three pints of chicken broth, one pint of canned black eyed peas, and a pint of chopped mustard greens. Simmer another ten minutes and add a half teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes right before serving. The soup and a pan of cornbread more than held the three of us over until dinner at which time I planned to have a nice surprise; but first it was on to getting things ready for the swap meet this Saturday where I planned to barter with or without Rand's help.

Today's activity was making rice mixes. They are really easy and I think they'll make me some good points to use at the Shack. Here are the recipes that I use:

Onion Rice Mix:  
4 cups uncooked rice  
1 envelope onion soup mix  
1/4 cup dried minced onion  
1 tablespoon parsley  
1/2 teaspoon salt

Lemon-Dill Rice Mix:  
4 cups uncooked rice  
1/4 cup grated lemon peel  
1/4 cup powdered chicken soup base  
2 tablespoons dill  
1 tablespoon chives  
1/2 teaspoon salt

Vegetable Rice Mix:  
4 cups uncooked rice  
1 envelope vegetable soup mix  
2 tablespoons dried minced onion  
2 tablespoons dried minced celery  
2 tablespoons dried minced bell pepper  
1 tablespoon parsley  
1 teaspoon salt

Spanish Rice Mix:  
4 cups uncooked rice  
1/2 cup Mexican seasoning mix  
1/2 cup dried corn  
2 tablespoons parsley  
1 tablespoon basil

Herb Rice:  
4 cups uncooked rice  
1/2 cup instant nonfat dry milk  
1/4 cup dried minced celery  
2 tablespoons parsley  
2 tablespoons thyme  
1 tablespoon marjoram

Combine ingredients specified for each different mix. Store mixes in an airtight container on the shelf for up to 4 months. I bagged the mixes two cups of rice at a time and we have plenty of rice so it isn't hurting us to barter it.

While I was doing this I fixed a whole wheat soy pizza crust. We've got a lot of soy beans thanks to Missy though she told me yesterday when she brought me by a big bag of lace scraps that she's been trading a whole lot more of them after she hung the directions for making soy milk on the bulletin board. I guess I could give her this recipe too.

You dissolve one tablespoon of yeast in one cup of warm water and let it sit until it starts to get foamy. Then you add one quarter cup of soy flour and one and one quarter cup of whole wheat flour and mix it until well combined. Then you stir in one teaspoon of salt (I used sea salt). I covered the bowl with cheesecloth and let it rise in a warm place for forty-five minutes.

Then you lightly oil a twelve-inch pizza pan and then press your dough out to the edges of the pan. You bake it for fifteen minutes or until the edges are brown and crisp and then take it out and top it with the ingredients you want, put it back in the oven until your toppings are finished and there you have it … whole grain pizza. Next time I may just have to make two the way Rand and Austin inhaled the pizzas. I was queen for the rest of the night and now I'm off to bed, Rand has promised me a foot massage and a few other things besides.

 **March 14** **th** – Busy, busy, busy. And too sore and tired to write much. I planted another three rows of bush beans. I've been planting a few more rows every week. When the seed pods dry we'll winnow them and bag the beans up. I can't help but think that eventually this will be a really good food supply for us personally and to barter … maybe even export if we can get enough growing to make it worth our while. Also had to hoe the other rows if things that are coming up. The mulch I have laid down this time is helping considerably but I notice there is more weeding to be done than there was when I was planting more sustainably using the square-foot method. Each method has its pros and cons but it will be harvest that will really determine which method I use in the planting seasons to come.

 **March 15** **th** **–** I don't know how and I don't know when but Fraidy surprised us by becoming a Momma last night. I had been going under the assumption that she was fixed but apparently not. I haven't seen any other cat thought several months back I know I heard one. Rand found her nest up in the loft first thing this morning. She's extremely protective but Rand was able to take her some food scraps without her fritzing out too much and in the end she practically inhaled what he left for her. She has seven kittens in her nest and I'm not sure what we are going to do with them all. I'd like to keep one but we'll have to see.

Today's mixture to take to the swap meet was instant chai tea. Another one so easy I can't believe how anyone would think of wanting to trade for it but Missy asked if I had any tea recipes since most people were running out of coffee. In a bowl combine one cup nonfat dry milk powder, one cup powdered non-dairy creamer, one cup French vanilla flavored powdered non-dairy creamer, two and one-half cups granulated sugar, one and one-half cups unsweetened instant tea, two teaspoons ground ginger, two teaspoons ground cinnamon, one teaspoon ground cloves, and one teaspoon ground cardamom. Next I put it in my hand-powered blender and basically pureed the stuff until it was the consistency of a fine powder. That took a while and next time I might cheat again and plug the old blender into the inverter.

Spent a good deal of time sewing and mending, especially socks. I got so irritated that I threw a pair of balled up socks at Rand and demanded that he trim his toenails because I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life trying to darn the same pair of socks over and over again only to have his shovel sharp nails undo the work or make a new hole after the first wear. Austin wears his out in the heel and I think it is because the socks he has are short and he is constantly pulling them up. I ought to know, I've got the same bad habit.

I also finished all of the preorders that Missy gave me last time. If it remains at a dozen orders each time then I'll be able to keep up, any more than that and I'll be in trouble, especially as soon as the garden really starts taking off which shouldn't be too much longer from now. I've been planting enough stuff that if we go hungry any time in the near future it won't be because we didn't put enough work into it.

 **March 16** **th** – Harvested English peas, cauliflower, and collard greens today in quantity so while I cleaned the house I canned up what I didn't put in the dehydrator. It used to be that I would dry what I didn't can but now it is the other way around. The more drying I can do the better. I haven't broken any jars yet, knock on wood, and my rings are still good but I will eventually run out of lids … not this year, maybe not even next year if I start rationing them, but eventually all things like that will run out unless they start manufacturing them again.

Rand and Austin laughed at me until they both nearly shot milk out of their noses. I don't care. Fraidy is way up in the loft taking care of seven kittens all on her own. How is she supposed to feed them and stay healthy herself? So I made her a kitty salad. I know it sounds stupid but Ms. Belle had this ancient cat that she would bring to work every once in a while and hide in her office … because of the health department you know. Anyway she swore that the reason her "Tum tum" was still healthy and frisky at nineteen was because she prepared all of his food from scratch and one of the things he really enjoyed was Grass Salad.

You start with a small carrot that you peel and grate, then add one-half cup of chopped fresh sprouts, two teaspoons of freshly chopped parsley, one-half teaspoon fresh chopped catnip, mix that all together just like you would a human salad. Then you sprinkle two tablespoons of vegetable broth over it and toss again. Of course a normal cat won't eat all of that in one sitting so you give them a little and refrigerate the rest. Rand wasn't laughing after he saw how eager Fraidy was for it after she figured out what it was.

Poor Woofer just looks up at the loft some times and whines because he knows his friend is up there and doesn't understand why she won't come down and go hunting with him. I have a feeling it is going to be interesting to see whether Fraidy tolerates Woofer around the kittens and whether Woofer really understands what the kittens are. We'll have to be careful. Rand says we have about two months before they are totally weaned but in about a month we should see Fraidy out and about more as she starts the weaning process.

Thinking about Fraidy has made me think about Laurabeth and Stevie. I need to pray for her more. She's going through something that would surely break me I think. I've lived through a lot but I view Rand and this baby as some type of reward for surviving. I really don't think I could handle them being taken from me. Maybe I shouldn't think that way. Maybe that makes me weak. I don't know, and frankly I'm not sure I care. I just don't want it to happen.

Rand got a couple of braces of quail today with some birdshot. I haven't had that much to do with cooking quail but Rand said that it can be done basically like chicken only with less cooking time because it is smaller. Well, I have been dying for BBQ chicken. I mean it woke me up in the middle of the night and I basically had to wipe my mouth because it was watering so much. Having cravings is so strange.

But then when it came right down to it every time I tried to clean those birds I couldn't, my stomach kept heaving. I was getting so mad and do you know what? Austin came to my rescue. I tell you that boy has a cast iron stomach just like Rand; nothing bothers him it seems. He cleaned them and then I split them into halves and grilled them, painting them with some homemade BBQ that I had canned last tomato season. I pan fried some whole kernel corn with plenty of butter, baked some white beans Boston style, and made biscuits. Oh my gosh! We all made pigs of ourselves and it was so good. I know that is bragging on my own cooking but I don't care. Rand and Austin even helped me clean the dishes up afterward and that just topped it off like a good dessert.

 **March 17** **th** – Happy St. Patty's Day. Yeah, I know it's a little silly but it sure was fun freaking Rand and Austin out at the breakfast table with green scrambled eggs, green biscuits, and green cream for the coffee. I wish I could have gotten a picture of their faces; it was worth using up one of my bottles of green food coloring to do it.

Today is baking day and while my normal bread items were baking or rising I went through more of Momma's recipe files. It seems that no matter how much time I spend doing this I'm always finding something new and interesting that I want to try.

Actually what I was looking for today was a sourdough starter that you can make out of whole wheat flour. I'm running pretty low on store-bought flour; it is amazing how quickly it goes when you make everything from scratch. That leaves the whole wheat flour that is made from the bags of grain we have in storage. The recipe I finally found even used honey instead of processed sugar.

You take one-half teaspoon of honey, one-half cup of whole wheat flour, and one-half cup of non-chlorinated water. The well isn't chlorinated so there isn't any problem there but I did leave it to sit in the window to bring it up to room temperature before using it to mix with. You mix all of that together in a glass jar using a wooden spoon; you can't use any metal with this recipe. You want a good lid on the jar and then sit it in a warm place where you will stir it twice a day for five days. On the sixth day mix in another half-cup of water and a half-cup of whole wheat flour and mix together well, cover it and let it sit in a warm place for one day to ferment. When it gets lots of bubbles and foam on top the yeast is ready to use.

The sourdough starter will separate when it sits; you just need to mix it back together before using. Momma recommended covering it with waxed paper secured with a rubber band and putting it in the frig where you only need to feed it weekly. You take half of the starter out to use in you baking and then add half a cup of water and half a cup of flour to keep it going. Sounds simple, let's see if it actually works.

I hope tomorrow is a good day. I haven't had too much luck at the swap meets as far as them being good days for me. Some of that is my fault, I won't hide from the truth. But on the other hand not all of it has been my fault. I would like to prove to myself that the swap meets aren't a bad place for me to go, that I can function normally in such a crowded setting. Yes, I do much better in small groups but I have to be able to be at least semi-normal around large groups of people.

It is raining again tonight, not as badly was the other night but enough that it will be muddy in the morning. We've got a bad place forming up at the gully for the higher than average rainfall. Rand has already laid the rock on the slope so it isn't from erosion. It's like the water is trying to bubble up through the road. The water isn't that high in the gully though it is higher than normal. I think, from looking at it, that it might actually be from the other side. The people on that side used to go mud bogging right there and it caused deep ruts and pits in the ground that nothing wants to grow in. The ground might be compacted and not letting the water perk down, especially if there is clay under the sand. You walk over there and it is like walking on a sponge, the water just squishes up out of the ground.

Rand has tried digging a ditch on the side of the road opposite side from the gully but it just fills with water and doesn't really do much to help. We've dumped some more lime rock on it that Rand hauled in from the old concrete plant but it is still like pudding in a couple of places.

The last thing we've done seems to have helped the most but may cause the most grief in the long haul. There were some small pines that he took out recently when opening up the new orchard area. He was going to chop it up for fat wood and fire starters but instead he cut the top and bottom off of them and laid them down across the road right there. It is kind of like a corduroy road but at least it keeps the wagon from sinking every time it is driven over that bad place.

Hopefully it will last long enough that we can get things a little better dried out so we don't have the pudding effect anymore. I walked up there with Rand and we were getting close to the bad spot when Rand suddenly went down to his knee in mud … that's the pudding effect. Actually it is the consistency of a thick cake batter but pudding sounds better when you are describing it to other people. We aren't the only ones having ground problems. Uncle George had to go pull a cow out of the mud a couple of days ago and Mr. Henderson had a section of wall cave in where water undercut the fence and the weight of the fence section pulled it over. Good thing no one was on the palisade there at the time.

In the past you could just pick up a phone and place an order for some gravel or lime rock to be hauled in, not anymore. It was an all day job when Rand went to the concrete plant that time to get a wagon load for us. He said there were people there with burlap bags strapped to donkeys and mules hauling it back to where ever they were from. Even met a couple of farmers from Gilchrist and Columbia counties. Gilchrist has lots of flooding. Columbia not so much but they've got problems with transients coming out of the south. Looks like we are going to be seeing people from both directions. I just hope they have their good manners on and that they'll leave us alone.


	87. Chapter 86

Chapter 86

 **March 18** **th** – Well, the swap meet was what it was; some good, some bad. When we got up and got going this morning the road was as bad as we expected it to be. The only place on the road in that the road was bad was right there at the gully but there were a couple of places on the forty that had developed a bad habit of holding water. Rand said he and Austin would dig a couple of them out to see if there was clay underneath and if it was worth trying to dig the clay out, if not they'd haul in some more lime rock.

Our road wasn't the only one in sad shape. A road crew hasn't been out to do any kind of road repair in well over a year now. Some of the road bed is showing through in places on the county roads and the highways. Of course, explosions and fires haven't exactly helped the conditions of the roads. After a particularly bad stretch I asked Rand to let me out and I would walk. He thought I was joking until he turned around and saw me holding my belly. He got upset and said he should have brought the buggy because at least it had a little bit of suspension but I reminded him that if he made any large purchase there wouldn't be anything to put it in with the buggy.

Lucky for me the road got a little smoother the closer we got to the swap meet area. There was a bad dip where we had to leave the road but that was it. I still had to make a dash to the outhouses that had been dug. I swear it is just plain embarrassing how often I have to stop and go to the bathroom these days. Missy warned me that is only going to get worse until after the baby is born and everything goes back where it is suppose to. Isn't that just jolly.

I pulled up and it took me a second to get ready to get out of the wagon. I hid the fact that my side was burning by acting like I was gathering stuff up but I only fooled Austin. Rand leaned over the wagon side and asked quietly, "You OK? You want to …"

"I'm fine. I just feel stupid is all."

"That isn't all, you're hurting again aren't you."

Rather than lie I told him, "Some … but it will go away, it always does. Look, that … that SueLinda … she's not around is she?"

"Why? Oh. Babe, don't let what she said get to you please … please. I know it's selfish to ask you to forget about what I did last time I …"

"Rand, that's already forgotten. I just don't feel like being embarrassed when she points out how fat I am. I can't even fit into the overalls anymore and, well, you know what I mean."

"One, you aren't fat you're pregnant. Two, you're pregnant with my baby. Three, you looked dang sexy to me … as a matter of fact if you want to go on home …"

"Now you are just being silly … but thank you. I really don't know why I care what anyone says, it's not like it's ever mattered. I just don't … I … this is stupid, I just don't want her to see my big fat behind trying to get out of the wagon again."

"Aw Babe. Look, I don't know why I didn't think about it but next time I'll figure out some steps or something. But, I like being able to hold you so everyone in the world can see … "

"Rand! What if someone sees?!"

"Let 'em. We're married."

"What is wrong with you?!" I asked him turning bright red as he finally put me on the ground and stood in front of me so I could fix my clothes. I swear lately every time we start talking about my belly he starts thinking about you know what. Missy noticed later in the day and I like to have died; but she only laughed and said Bill was the same way. I asked her if it was pheromones or something scientific like that. She said no, that it was testosterone and guys were just impressed with their fertility or something equally obnoxious. I don't really mind it I just wish he wouldn't do it out in public. People already look at me like I've got three heads, I don't want them thinking that Rand is crazy and that's just exactly what they'll think. I mean, why else would he act like that?

But that was later, first we had to actually get into the swap meet. They had to move it further away from the parking area so that they could enlarge the vendor area. And instead of a horseshoe shape or circle they now had aisles to walk up and down. I'm not sure I like it but it certainly let's more folks set up booths in a certain amount of space. They put Bill and Missy's place and Clyde's trailer on the very outside since they generated so much business but folks still got all bunched up.

Austin went off to hang out with some of the boys – the father of the boy that was a scout master had promised to teach them to shoot a bow and arrow – in an area that had been specifically roped off away from the vendors and the fast food carts. There was also another roped off area and it was specifically for the little kids; that was next to an area that Pastor Ken had set up. The kids had organized games as well as free play while their parents could talk to Ken if they felt the need. Some of the men and women just came to watch the kids play. Ken had said that for most of the watchers it was a healthy way to deal with their grief … a lot of children and grandchildren had been lost to the flu.

Rand and I looked at the new way the vendor tables were set up and we decided to drift back to where Missy and Bill had their trailer set up. Missy called me behind their table and in the pretense of paying attention to Billy … not that I didn't think he was a cute butterball … I handed off the pre-orders to her. "Do you know that I could have gotten two dozen orders for that lingerie already?"

I looked at her and then asked, "So what's the rest of the story? It isn't like you or Bill to turn down a deal."

"I recognized the woman. She works for SueLinda. Profit or not I don't want anything to do with her so called business. And even if she wasn't into that kind of trade I'd pass on it, family sticks together."

"Oh Missy," I whispered. "I don't want you and Bill to …"

"Don't sweat it girl. It's about family. Besides, how would it look if I was to start making money – even if it was indirect – off of that kind of trade? I can't afford the hassle I would get from Momma O and Mrs. Withrow much less the rest of our female customers." That made me smile. Missy really would have done it just because of family … but it didn't hurt that her decision was reinforced by making it a good business decision.

"What's in the other basket?" she asked me.

"Just some stuff to use for trade. If I can't use it I'll bring it back and see if you can use any of it here."

Rand and I took off to look at the different tables but then he looked at me, "Do you … um … do you mind that we are hanging out together?"

I looked at him confused at first and then realized what he was trying to do. "Rand I like spending time with you. If you are with me because you want to be that's good … but don't feel that you have to if you want to go off and talk to the men."

"Weeellllll … how about we walk through the next aisle and then I'll take off over to there and you can … you know … do your thing."

I smiled to let him know that it was a plan.

"Well if it isn't the two love birds."

The morning had been pretty good until she showed up. Rand was really angry really fast … about as fast as I've ever seen him get mad but I still managed to grab him before he popped off. I did something I don't normally do and got up under his arm like he had it draped around my shoulders then leaned my head against him and said, "Brrr, where did that wind come from? Let's move Honey, it smells kind of … odd. I don't think where ever it is coming from is too healthy."

Rand looked at me and scrunched his eye brows but after a second gave me a half smile and we kept walking, ignoring SueLinda. She didn't like that at all but the older woman that was with her grabbed her arm and they changed directions and walked in the opposite direction we did. The first table I stopped at was a stationery booth. They had all sorts of paper, envelopes, writing tablets, pencils and erasers, and mechanical pens. But they also had quills, glass dip pens, and bamboo dip pens. Best of all they had inks, some store-bought but most of them looked homemade. It was like going Christmas shopping.

But they wanted what I thought was a whole lot for their inks … a whole lot. They were even trading in Sand Dollars which is how much they wanted for their wares. Besides, we had things that we needed and that ink was just a want. Momma O and her family were running a booth trading seeds and seedlings and were doing a brisk business. That wasn't what I was after so I waved and kept going.

I passed booths trading tools, building materials, scrap metal bits and pieces like flashing (I wrote down who it was to tell Rand about it), block and tackle, fishing gear, then I caught up with Rand who was standing looking at a table full of feed samples. I touched him on the arm and he introduced around and all the men were mannerly and tipped their hats if they had them, nodded their head if they didn't.

"Babe, didn't you say that you could make millet into flour or into a cereal?"

"Well … yeah. And you had millet cereal for breakfast the other day."

The man behind the counter said, "I never heard of making flour out of it but me da' told me of eating the stuff back during the Depression when they didn't have nothing else ter eat. He wouldn't touch the stuff for anything else but animal feed after that."

I stuck close to Rand but felt forced to reply, "It is a bit like eating birdseed until you get used to it but I use millet flour to make the little wheat flour we have go further. You can do the same thing with soy beans – like those you have there – of course the flour they make doesn't have any gluten in it but there are some people that can't have gluten anyway."

"Well then Missus Joiner, how do ye make the millet flour."

"The easiest way is to toast the seeds in a skillet a little, cool them all the way, and then grind them. The longer you grind them the finer the flour. You can get it just about as fine as cornstarch if you have the arm for it. If I was making pastry dough I'd take the time to do that but since I just use it for bread I don't bother grinding it that fine."

I heard one man say to another, "Have to tell the wife, she's on me about needing flour every time I turn around and the wheat is dat blamed expensive."

Another man with a two-year old strapped to his back in a carrier asked, "What about that cereal, can you feed it to little kids?"

"Sure, they eat the stuff in lots of places around the world. In a dry skillet toast about a half cup of whole millet seed. Put the toasted millet in a bag and then roll them with a rolling pin until they are ground as fine as you want them. In a saucepan bring one and a half cup of water to a boil and add the ground millet, a pinch of salt, a half teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a pinch of ground nutmeg, and a half teaspoon of ground cardamom. Turn the heat down to simmer, cover and then simmer for fifteen minutes. If all of the water is absorbed before the cereal is tender then add a tablespoon or two of water at a time until you get the consistency that you want."

The man was looking pretty desperate and said, "Could you write that down?"

I looked at Rand but he only grinned, "Um, I guess, sure." I pulled out my handy dandy notepad – I never leave home without it – and copied it out like I had said it. After Rand and I drifted away I found out the man had lost his wife to the flu was raising the baby girl who was two, and two little boys who were five and six years old. There had been another little boy who would have been three but he died with his mother. The poor man has his hands full.

"He was seeing a woman from Columbia County, a friend of his wife's who lost her husband around the same time he lost his wife, but she up and married a neighbor that didn't have any kids. I guess she just didn't want the responsibility of raising another woman's set of children," Rand whispered, explaining things to me. "He has a pretty decent place, just doesn't have the time to develop it much because he has to take care of his little ones."

I was chewing over that when we finally came to a vendor that I really needed to chat with. Here was the lady that was the spinner and weaver. It wasn't cheap, it cost a couple of quarts of sorghum, but I came away with several spools of good cotton thread. I knew it was good because it required some strength to break the thread; cheap or loosely spun thread breaks and pulls apart real easy.

Rand kissed the top of my head and took off when he spotted a vendor that was looking to barter a bunch of old tools. Yep, just like my Daddy. I wandered on and then came to a vendor trading books. That's when I realized that we still hadn't done anything about schooling for Austin. He wasn't doing too badly as one of the things that we liked to do at the end of the day was read a book chapter or two out loud. His reading and vocabulary was pretty good if I was any judge. He was learning science and agriculture from Rand. But I wasn't sure what to do about math beyond the basics of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. He needed more than that but the only real school books I had were the highschool level ones that I took months ago out of the first house I salvaged. I added that to my list of wants and not needs … but it could turn into a need if I couldn't figure out some way around the problem.

A few more vendor tables and I came to the table of the leathersmith. He was selling belts, hats, leather aprons, whips, and a bunch of other stuff. He also made stuff to order. But what really caught my eye were these moccasins. They weren't just the foot part though, these ran up your legs sort of like boots and had laces that held it in place.

"Excuse me. Sir?"

"Oh … well hello there. You're Rand Joiner's wife aren't you?"

"Yes sir. Um … could you put some kind of sole on those moccasins?"

"Oh aye, it's the way I wear my own. These hear are just samples I made a few years ago. I ran with the suttlers with the Mountain Man re-enactment events. You looking for something for Rand?"

"Actually we have a boy living with us … "

"That'd be Austin?"

"Oh … um … yes."

"Had the boy staying with us a bit, glad to see he found a family. My sister wanted him, all she has is girls, but with the houseful we have … we just couldn't offer him anything. You'd be better off letting me repair a pair of old lace up boots for him. The moccasins are great for hunting and staying around the house but with the field work he is doing with Rand he needs the ankle support and the sole to protect his feet. If you bring me a pair we can see what we can work out."

I'm not stupid, the fact he wasn't trying to sell me anything and tried to advise me whether he made anything on a deal or not makes him a good 'un in my opinion. I told Rand later and he said that Mick and Tommy were in the same boat and frankly so was he. We decided to use the trade profit from the pre-orders that I gave to Missy and use it for work boots for Rand and Austin. They didn't have their sizes today but Missy said she had a couple of pairs at the Shack that might fit, Rand and Austin will just have to go try them on. They are in pretty rough shape so we should be able to pick them up for cheap and then just have them fixed up properly and Rand said he knows the man needs his road graded so they could probably make a barter for work rather than for goods.

I saw vendors who were selling veggies but nothing dried or anything like that. It made me feel that I still had a good idea about making sure we have enough dried veggies and fruits to barter with during the off season. I have a feeling the apples are going to do killer well but I don't want to count my chickens before they are hatched.

And speaking of chickens there were two vendors there selling eggs and birds; one had chickens and the other had geese and ducks. My geese are big helpers in the garden, the chickens not so much. The chickens were pecking at everything. I guess they got use to me throwing them scraps and aren't just interested in bugs but anything they can sink their beaks into. I have yet to have the geese pinch anything but bugs off of the plants. I keep the chickens to their run these days and let the geese into the fenced in garden … except one of them who is sitting her nest. Boy is she testy. I bent over the wrong way and man did I get a pinch.

It was about then that things started getting pretty crowded. I was getting really tired of being bumped around. I didn't recognized one in ten of the people which told me that maybe it was time for me to scoot back to Missy and Bill's trailer and wait out the rush. Instead Austin found me first along with Tommy. Neither boy looked happy. Mick, moving slower because he was surrounded by a gaggle of girls and looking so close to panic I nearly laughed out loud, brought up the rear.

"Kiri! Hi!" His eyes pleaded for some help so we stepped off to the side and I started talking to them – I recognized most of them from church – while Mick let Austin and Tommy drag him away as the suddenly lost the gloom on their face.

After they realized their captive had escaped the girls wandered off to find their parents since it was lunch time. Rand's stomach is as reliable as any clock and his height helped him to find me even in the crowd. He had the boys with him and our picnic basket. "Let's put the blanket out under the tree over there instead of eating in the wagon. I've already checked on Bud and Lou and they're fine."

Rand surprised us all by having some smoked catfish filets. "A fella owed me for some mowing I did for him. I figured I'd never see it but he stopped me and gave us this. Said that the road I mowed helped him to get his boat out where it kept getting hung up and now he fishes the river and smokes the fish he catches. Wait boys, let Kiri get a bite first."

I like some fish but I wasn't sure why he wanted me to try it first. But win I took a small bite it was divine. I'd never had anything like it. "He smoked this batch with pecan wood. He also has some over there done with oak and maple."

The filets melted when you ate them. It went perfect with the wilted salad (wilted on purpose with bacon grease), and hardboiled eggs that I had brought. For dessert I brought cookies since I figured that the boys would be around. There was also a ceramic jug of fresh milk to drink. The boys for their part contributed buttered bread and peach preserves and some summer sausage.

Our lunch nearly got trampled by a brawl but Rand jumped up and pushed them off in another direction before disaster struck and Mitch Peters had the two ijits under control not long after that. They'd passed a bottle back and forth just enough to both get stupid. There were a couple of other brawls and SueLinda was told to get her girls under control or leave since they alone had caused three of them by inciting the men to act foolish. She didn't leave but she did send two of her girls off with that older lady I had seen her with earlier.

I was pretty tired by the time we finished but I was determined to hit all the vendors and I'm glad that I did. It was like walking through the sutler section of a reenactment event. There was a vendor devoted to women's stuff. They worked the river so while the Shack no longer had a monopoly on some of the lingerie items, this vendor didn't do pre-orders or "to size" orders which was the niche that I filled. This vendor sold bonnets, parasols, fans, snoods, and aprons. They also sold hair accessories like combs and hair pins.

Other vendors there included tables for candles, horse accessories (run by a Ferrier), rope, housewares, mops and brooms, sewing notions like leather thimbles and buttons, garden tools, and that didn't even include the people offering to trade their services like blade sharpening, tailor/seamstress, and blacksmithing. I'd seen everything and was looking around for Rand when I spotted him. For about two seconds I thought of just waiting things out but the look on Rand's face finally drove me to act.

Rand isn't violent. He's not passive by any stretch and I've seen him lose his temper and get in brawls all right, but more because it is a guy thing rather than a violent streak separate from that. And I've never seen him able yet to even push a woman out of his way much less anything more than that. But SueLinda was getting close to being the exception that proves the rule. The choices that Rand and I had made couldn't all be laid at her door but she didn't help and did play a role in the ruckus that occurred. And she was obviously up to her tricks again, though not the kind that most would think considering her current job description.

Rand was trying to ignore her so hard and SueLinda was so intent on her mischief making that neither one noticed me until I'd already swept SueLinda's legs out from under her and she was sprawled on the ground, very red in the face. "You need to pump up that situational awareness thing SueLinda. The kind of trouble you are constantly trying to cause is going to make you some serious enemies."

I walked around her – out of arms reach, I'm not that crazy – and stepped into Rand's one-armed hug with a smile. "Hi," I said using my best butter wouldn't melt in my mouth expression.

Thank you God that Rand laughs when most other guys would have lost patience a long time ago. "Hi yourself. You ready to go?"

And we did, arm-in-arm leaving SueLinda to get to her feet and stomp away. Rand said quietly, "I love you. I wish … "

"You wish I hadn't done anything about SueLinda?"

"No. I wish you hadn't been put into the position in the first place. I managed to avoid her all day until just now. I wish I knew what her problem was."

"Does it matter? Apparently there are some girls like that just like there are some guys. They can't deal with the fact that someone got away, unimpressed by their whatever you want to call it."

"Yeah, well, SueLinda isn't a girl. She's a grown woman and it is doggone embarrassing. Bad enough I made a fool of myself in college and then again a couple of weeks ago, I don't want to see you get dragged into this."

I realized then that really was his whole problem with it. She didn't tempt him, she reminded him of how stupid he had felt the first time around and then how guilty he felt over what happened two weeks ago. Suddenly I didn't feel threatened by her at all even if she is a real live beauty queen, smart, and worst of all tall and willowy. I laughed right out loud I felt so free. I got a strange look from Rand and some of the other folks that were being nosy but I didn't care. I didn't even mind looking silly because I had to have help to get into the back of the wagon, it was all good.

I kept that feeling all the way home and for the rest of the day after we got home. I'm sitting here now still feeling good while I write this in my journal and stuff my face with popcorn. Tomorrow is Sunday and I mostly plan on resting. There are always regular chores but I think tomorrow I'm going to sit down and - blush - look through Momma's baby patterns. I might even crochet some lace if I feel up to it.

 **March 19** **th** – Yawn, yawn, yawn. I'm tired and the only thing I've done today is eat. I'm even going to bed early.

 **March 20** **th** – Rand is a stinker; a flat out stinker. And I could just kiss him for it.

We had a huge tree fall on the fence line. It wasn't our tree but one from the property adjacent to us. When it fell … it just kind of keeled over because half of its root ball had died and shrunk … it took down several smaller trees in its way. Brendon and Ron showed up early this morning to help cut the trees back. Thing is Laurabeth was with them. I could tell that Rand hadn't expected that but there wasn't much he could say that wouldn't make things worse.

While the guys went to go do the trees Laurabeth and I were left staring at each other. Then Stevie made a rude noise from the end that babies tend to make rude noises from.

Laurabeth sighed, "That's a commentary on all the greens that I've been eating lately."

I tried not to but I laughed before I could stop. Laurabeth and I had never been close but she had always been nice to me. After she had changed Stevie we sat down on the porch with Laurabeth rocking the baby and me trying to fix Rand's sock for the hundredth time.

"Rand still wrecks his socks all to pieces I see."

"Yeah. I'm thinking of sewing leather on the toe area and heel of all his socks."

"Wouldn't do any good; his toenails are like band saws. Daddy used to complain that you could always tell whose socks belonged to who; Rand's were the ones with holes in the toes and Brendon's were the ones that were always stretched out at the top where he was always pulling at them."

Silence fell for a few moments. "Kiri?"

"Hmmm?" I asked while I snipped a piece of thread with my teeth.

"I'm … I'm sorry. Ron … he says … he says he's sure you aren't holding anything that I said against me but …"

She surprised me and it must have showed before I could get my blank face on. "Oh, it's OK. I know I was pretty awful. I don't … I don't remember everything. There are great big empty spaces in my head. I … I don't want to talk what happened but … I do want to apologize for … you know … what people said that I said and … "

"Laurabeth, it's all right. I spent a long time being … not nice to downright nasty after my family died. Not everyone deals with their grief like that and I hope that if I ever have to … though I pray that I never have to … go through something like that again that I don't hurt other people just because I'm hurting so bad. So I understand. Thanks for apologizing, I just want you to know that you don't have to."

"Yes, yes I do, for my own peace of mind. I can't leave stuff like that hanging out there, I've got enough to … oh God Kiri I miss Jonathon … and the baby … so bad there are days I just dread waking up."

Well then she started crying and then I started crying and it took a while for us to both stop because every time one of us would the other continued and we'd start up crying all over again. But I don't know, maybe we both needed to do some crying. I was tired afterwards but it was the kind of tried you get after you've emptied stuff out of yourself that it was time you unloaded. I wouldn't say that Laurabeth and I are any closer than we were before but we both acknowledge that we share something, a depth of pain maybe, and it's given us some insight into the other.

I'm relieved that she seems to be coming back from wherever she had retreated to in her spirit and told Rand so when they left after lunch – white beans with smoked ham hocks, cornbread, and stewed canned potatoes. "Brendon and Ron told me she was a lot better. I wasn't sure whether to believe them or not. She still seems … fragile."

"She is, but she's more there in her mind than she's been in a while. She may have setbacks but I think she is definitely moving forward."

Then he and Austin took a load of the wood and I thought they had been taking it to Uncle George's place only it turns out they weren't . As a matter of fact some birdie or other had been whispering to Rand what vendors that I had been stopping and looking at. I suspect it was the boys but I don't know for sure, Rand wouldn't say. I guess he is worried that I think that he is checking up on me but I really don't. And even if he was it's not bothering me. So long as I know it isn't me that he doesn't trust then I'm kinda OK with him being protective.

When he came home Austin made himself scarce saying he was gonna go check on Fraidy's kittens. I reminded him not to touch them but that he could pull some grass and take it up to Fraidy if he wanted to. I turned to go back inside to take the cornbread out of the oven and Rand followed me inside. He took the skillet out of the oven for me when I said it was ready and then told me to close my eyes.

"Huh?"

"Just close your eyes."

I thought he'd found an interesting rock or flower or something and was just playing so I smiled and closed my eyes. He told me to hold out my hands and he put something smooth and cold in my hand. I could tell it was a small jar but it was a funny shape.

He gave me a few moments to feel it and try and guess and then whispered, "Open your eyes."

It was a jar of ink Before I could even pull a question together he pulled a wooden-handled carpet bag from behind his back and said, "Surprise."

There were jars of colored inks and packets of ink powder and even a box of nibs for the dip pen I liked to use. "Wait! Where did this come from?"

"I traded the wood."

"But … but Rand … I didn't need this … and it … Rand the price … "

"It's all right Babe. Don't be upset. The man's name is Kutchner. He was selling out and we worked a deal yesterday. He wanted to ride one of the passenger boats heading to Steinhatchee but they didn't want to trade for his ink. What they did want was wood since their boat uses a steam engine. So I traded Kutchner wood for the ink and he traded the wood for passage down south."

"Oh Rand."

"There are some of those steno tablets you use out in the wagon in a box with some other odds and ends too."

"But Rand, I … I didn't need this. I've been doing just fine with the pecan shell ink."

"I know, and we'll keep using the homemade ink for everyday but now you have something nice to use in your journal. It seems to make you feel better when you can write."

"It does but all of that work, cutting the trees out of the fence and into lengths, loading it into the wagon … "

"I wanted to. You do all that sewing and stuff so that we can get what we need from the Shack. You've never asked for anything yourself. This time I wanted to do something just for you."

All I could do was say "Oh Rand" all over again. I'm going to save the colored ink; for what I don't know, but I'm going to save it. Tomorrow I'm going to make up some of the powdered ink. It is going to feel funny writing in blue again.


	88. Chapter 87

Chapter 87

 **March 25** **th** – It's been a full week since I last had time to sit down and write anything. If it hasn't been one thing it's been another. We have a nasty cold running through the house. Austin came down with it first so more than likely he picked it up from some of the boys at the last swap meet and Rand and I got it a couple of days later. As a matter of fact one of the reasons why I've stopped long enough to write is because Pastor Ken came by and basically said either I willingly got off my feet or he would order me off my feet. Rand overheard what he said and that's all she wrote but only because Rand has learned how to handle me. I know he is handling me and he knows that I know he is handling me and also knows the only reason he can get away with that is because I let him. He gives me the pathetic puppy face. He looks so serious sometimes I can't help but laugh and give in.

Sunday we took the wagon over to Uncle George's and visited with them for a little while. Laurabeth was a little overwhelmed and I flat out told her that if it was too much I'd ask Rand to leave early. That seemed to draw her up short and she said, "No. Don't do that. I just … all the noise and sometimes … someone is always watching me and it makes me feel even crazier than I already am. I understand why they're doing it but I still don't like it. I hate being stared at. Having more people do it just makes it worse."

"So long as you're sure. I hate being stared at too and understand about that. Look," I said checking to see if anyone was listening. "Um, you wouldn't happen to mind me asking you some … um … questions would you?"

"About … about what?"

I finally screwed up my courage and said, "Baby stuff."

"Baby stuff? You mean like … oh … you mean like taking care of them and things like that?"

Relieved she understood I said, "Yes, please. Alicia seems to be living in her own world and only blushes when she thinks anyone is going to talk about that stuff. Missy … well, you know Missy. She'd answer my questions but then she'd be the one making me blush. I just want to talk to someone that has some common sense and won't make me feel as dumb as a stump."

For some reason she thought that was funny and it was the first time in a long time I heard her laugh. It wasn't much of one but it was definitely a laugh. "Sure. Come into the bedroom and if anyone asks I'll just say I'm changing Stevie. He needs it anyway. So, what did you want to ask?"

"How do you do … that …feed the baby I mean."

"Oh. Well, they do most of the work. You just have to be careful they don't make you raw." My eyes must have gotten big because she grinned and went into more detail of what she meant. After a while we were comfortable enough that I could ask her how she was doing, really doing.

"There are days when I feel like I'm going to be OK and days that I … don't. How did you … you know … live after your family died like that?"

I was very careful with my answer. I wanted to be honest but I didn't want to scare her either. "I had a hard time for a while. People … I didn't have any family support. My 'aunt and uncle' were really my dad's cousins and did the best they could I suppose but, for me it wasn't good enough. So I floundered around trying to put one foot in front of the other and I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I learned a lot but to be honest, I'm still undoing some of the junk that I tied myself up with. The one thing above all others that has always stuck with me is that …" and it still choked me up to talk about it. "…my parents and brother loved me. They wouldn't have wanted for me the kind of hell I put myself through. It took a long time for me to see that. Maybe longer because I didn't have anyone that actually sat me down and explained that to me."

Laurabeth was looking out the window. "Jonathon loved you. And he was a guy with lots of commonsense. And you know that he's in Heaven with the baby. I can't say what your future holds Laurabeth but I know that whatever it is you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jonathon wouldn't hold you living a good life against you. In fact, that's exactly what he would have wanted you to do in his memory."

"Kiri, do you think … I mean … do you think that Ron can say the same thing about … about Julia? He doesn't show it but I think in some ways he's … Kiri, sometimes I think the only reason he remembers to breathe is because he has it in his head that he's going to look after Stevie. And maybe after me too. I think he's more tortured than … than … I'm scared for him sometimes. He'll read to me out of the Bible when I'm feeling really bad but it's like … like he won't let himself hear the Words or feel the comfort. I'm afraid it is because … he doesn't think he deserves them."

Yeah, that gave me lots to think about. After Austin went to bed that night , early because he was tired though we didn't know he was just starting to get sick too, I talked it over with Rand. I could tell he was listening but at the same time he was thinking that it was just "women talk" and us guessing when it came to Ron's state of mind.

Next day started the cold for Austin and by the end of the day Rand and I weren't feeling too chipper either. Cold or not, Sparkleberry Ranch still needed tending. Rand worked around the house laid down when he got too tired. Austin I kept in bed for a few days and he mostly just slept. It gave me time to work at my own pace in the garden and I could tell we were just about to head into a period of some heavy dehydrating and canning going on. Tuesday I planted a bunch more rows of dried beans. Wednesday I got some sewing done but not as much as I wanted to. The treadle just hurt my head too much, I had a bad sinus headache, so I sat out on the front porch and did some mending and crocheted a small lace edge on a sun bonnet for the baby.

Thursday I should have been cleaning the house but I just didn't feel like being inside. Austin and Rand didn't either but they, like me, didn't have a whole lot of energy for things that weren't absolutely essential. Rand did do some hunting but the game isn't quite as sparse as it used to be but you can still tell the area has been over hunted. There probably wouldn't be an edible game animal in the area if bullets weren't getting scarce enough that people are holding onto the ammo they have.

What I did on Thursday was putter around in my flowers. I planted the caladium bulbs under some of the trees our front of the house. I planted impatiens in the shadiest flower beds on the far side of the house, but off to the side so that the lantana wouldn't overwhelm them. I sprinkled phlox and gallardia seeds all over the property since they tend to do best when you leave them alone. The marigolds that I had started in the greenhouse got interplanted with rows of growing things out in the garden. And my daylily bed got spruced up and muched.

Friday it was back to serious work since late in the day on Thursday, after I had planted the marigolds, I started harvesting the English peas. Not enough have come in for me to can yet, that'll be next week, but we had creamed peas for lunch yesterday and it was just right for everyone's appetite.

Today has been laundry. I still don't feel one hundred percent but I couldn't put off washing the sheets or Rand's and Austin's work clothes. All three of us also took good baths and scrubbed away what we could of the lingering cold. It is still a little chilly at night and I didn't want any wet heads to bring the colds back full force.

Tomorrow is a church service Sunday. I debated on going but Rand says he needs to so that he can get his work schedule for the next couple of weeks arranged. We have a lot of our own work to do as well in the coming weeks. We will be planting a large field of peanuts and we hope to harvest all the grains that we planted back in October.

I'm going to wear a new dress to church tomorrow. It might be a really girly thing to do but I just can't wear a pair of old, unbuttoned overalls and a flannel shirt for people like Momma O and Mrs. Withrow to see. I tried it on tonight thinking I would need to take it in a little on top and doggone if I haven't grown even more up there. This is ridiculous. I feel like I've been taken over by an alien.

 **March 26** **th** – So much for a calm day. In the middle of Ken's sermon one of Mr. Henderson's men came in and said there had been an attack on the military compound. The attack had been repelled but the raiders – or whatever they were – were dispersing into the community. Everyone packed up as quickly as possible and headed back to their places to make sure that nothing happened.

We saw some strangers going by on horses but just because they were strangers didn't mean they were the raiders. One of them was a very capable looking woman but again, that didn't necessarily mean that they were raiders. On the other hand we didn't take any chances. Mitch Peters came along with a few men and "escorted" the strangers out of the area just to make sure they didn't get waylaid by people getting the wrong idea.

We are all locked up tight and have our bowl of popcorn to enjoy. My kitchen counters are full of things to that need to be dried and canned tomorrow. We've learned the hard way not to leave anything in the garden. Gonna be a busy day tomorrow.

 **March 28** **th** – Yesterday was a nightmare. Just a complete and total nightmare. There was a mouse in my kitchen. I got up and went in there to start breakfast and there was the little beasty sitting on my counter eating my English peas! It was horrible. I screamed loud enough to be heard in Columbia County.

After all the ruckus died down Rand nearly fell over laughing. I still don't think it is very funny but he said it was like one of those "Funniest Home Video" shows. I screamed and they came running and when they got there I was running around the kitchen with a broom yelling, "Kill it! Kill it!" Woofer had come running too and was knocking over chairs and baskets trying to catch the little evil vermin for me. We made a bigger mess catching the mouse than the mouse had on his own.

I emptied every cabinet and hauled everything out of the kitchen until I realized that the cover had come off the floor drain and that is how the nasty little thing must have gotten in. Evil I tell you. Fraidy is moving back inside and I don't care what she has to say about it.

Actually she has been a good sport after having a mild conniption at first. We put the kittens in a box in the spare room and since we haven't bothered them since she seems satisfied. Woofer was happy to share his bowl of leftovers with Momma Fraidy, I think he was lonesome for her. I'm not so worried about our little cat family either.

I hope that is the only mouse that has come in. Just to be on the safe side I've been sprinkling cayenne pepper seeds and mint and spearmint in all the cabinets.

 **March 29** **th** – More baby sewing. I felt all mushy while I was doing it. The baby is getting more and more real. I mean he's been real before now but it seems that as far away as his being born is, it still isn't time enough for me to get everything done before he gets here.

Rand was gone all day today. He and Austin went to do some mowing and tomorrow they are going to go plow two fields … one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We aren't the only ones preparing to plant. Mr. Coffey is going to plant a couple of really big fields of peanuts and cut his production of sorghum accordingly. We still have sorghum left over from his last harvest and hopefully it will last us a while longer yet.

I wonder what that is going to do for its trade value at the swap meets? Right now there is plenty if you are willing to trade for it so while it has a high trade value there isn't any shortage. Next season that could be different depending on how many are growing sorghum for their personal use. I heard on Sunday at the dinner table that the people in their co-op (I'm kind of at a loss what else to call them since they all tend to throw their work together on big projects like this) are going to be planting a big field of it. In addition to the seed heads for people food as well as animal feed, and the stalks for the juice to make syrup with, they were talking about trying to use the remaining biomass in ethanol production. It might not net them much ethanol but they could build a central refrigeration unit or fill a tractor engine.

Rand started our ethanol still up a few days ago. He's starting with a traditional mash made of corn, yeast … well, all the stuff you'd use to make moonshine. A few more days and we'll have something … but we'll have to see if it will actually burn clean enough to operate an engine. One of Rand's recent acquisitions has been several plastic fuel drums. Once he figures out if this works, he'll start storing the ethanol first for our own use, then for trade.

Another project that Rand is working on getting the parts for is a biomass briquette production set up. It made my head hurt trying to understand what he was so excited about. Mr. Coffey, his son, and Rand were talking about it before the church service on Sunday. Basically they plan on taking dried biomass … like peanut shells, sawdust, wood chips, soy bean husks, etc. … and then you process and press the stuff into a hollow cylinder using a screw press. The briquettes can then be used to operate a steam engine. The problem is that you have to have fuel to operate the briquette maker that they've designed (Mr. Coffey's son and Rand are going in shares for the parts) which is where the ethanol comes in. After the briquette machine is completely operational then they'll convert the briquette machine to using the biomass briquettes in a steam engine so it will basically be producing enough briquettes to fuel its own production.

Rand "found" a really old steam engine tractor. The old woman just wants someone to help her and her grandchildren out and could care less about the old junk her husband – dead over twenty years – left in the barn. He's been hauling it home a few parts at a time in exchange for keeping her property mowed and plowing her garden. The tires on this thing are very strange and the overall size of the thing is huge. Rand is going to have to build a pole barn for the tractor alone. When the tractor is up and running Rand says we'll be sitting on gold. I don't know about that but it sounds like he won't have to work so hard and that's good to me. We don't get to spend near as much time together as we used to, it makes me a little anxious and sad … and lonesome.

For my part in trying to add to our family's "wealth" I've been drying a bunch of stuff the last week or so; beets, English peas, greens, turnips, and today I harvested several bunches of celery. It has been so long since I've had fresh celery that I had a really hard time not eating a whole bunch … literally. There are days that I could just graze from sun up to sun down. I have to be careful though because gaining too much weight with the baby could be just as bad as gaining too little according to Ken. I've got a cleaner bill of health than I had before. Blood pressure is all under control and I'm feeling better too.

The one thing I'm not feeling so good about is that Rand brought word that SueLinda's business isn't the only unsavory one that is springing up along a certain section of the river. There's gambling, a few saloon type bars, and a black market warehouse. Because of the goods they have for sale or trade there they are pulling business away from the Trade Shack. Bill and Missy aren't hurting, they run a legitimate business and provide a real service, but when people start bartering for luxuries they have less to trade for their needs. The military supposedly keeps a close eye on what is happening but claim they really don't have any jurisdiction over them unless they become a threat to the community's general peace and safety. I suppose that depends on how you look at it and whose yardstick you are using to measure it by.


	89. Chapter 88

Chapter 88

 **March 30** **th** – The influx of northern refugees has begun to arrive. Rand is really bent out of shape. No, he is more than bent out of shape; he is absolutely furious.

We were working out in the yard when several families crossed into our land jumping the fence to the north of the homesite. They immediately made a beeline for our gardens. That stunt nearly got them killed. The fact that they had young children amongst them saved their bacon- that and the fact they didn't make it into the gardens. The fences are strong to keep animals and raiders out they are strong enough to keep out some pathetic refugees, otherwise bloodshed was imminent.

That alone was enough to be upsetting but what came next is what made Rand blow a gasket.

"Hey! What are you shooting at us?! The lady said we'd get food here. Now you give it to us like she said or we're gonna take it!"

One of the men began to raise his gun at Rand and I, standing at a back window, fired off a warning shot that puffed the sand right between the blowhard's feet.

"Throw it away or the next one is gonna turn you from a rooster into a hen!" I yelled out from my secure position.

Rand was still covering the three other men and Austin was armed as well. Finally their stupid cranked back a notch. They threw down their weapons and we were telling the women we weren't going to shoot 'em in the back or take their kids when horses came galloping down our lane.

Lucky for us it was just Mitch, Hoss, and Bradley. They'd been coming to discuss business with Rand when they'd heard the shooting and my yelling. At the sight of the men on horseback it was like a Chinese firedrill; the refuges started running in every which direction.

The three men were confirmed cowboys by this time and rounded up the people even faster than they would have the same number of cattle. They all started squawking at the same and Rand gave one of his piercing whistles to shut them up long enough for Mitch to get a word in edgewise. Additional men from the Henderson Ranch showed up as did Mr. Henderson himself.

It was a circular story that had to be repeated several times before we could make heads or tails of it. They didn't know the name of the "lady" in question but given where they were given the information on Sparkleberry Ranch and the general description of the woman in question there was no doubt in our mind that SueLinda was behind this.

Rand was so angry I was nearly scared of him. It took Mitch and Mr. Henderson to keep him taking off right then but it wasn't until I had a little spell and had to sit down that he let go of his fury. I tried to tell him I was fine but in a sense it only deepened his anger but it did keep it in check.

This whole time the refugees kept trying to justify their actions. Rand finally snarled, "You people ever thought of asking?! I've got a family to take care of and my wife has a baby on the way. Had you gone looking for work instead of a hand out you might have found what you were looking for. Now all you've done is make it less likely that I'd want to help you or anyone like you." I put my hand on Rand's arm, concerned because the anger I was seeing was so unlike him. "No Kiri, they can go to the blasted migrant farm and work for a living. They put you and the baby and Austin in danger and I won't abide that, not for any reason. Henderson! Get them off my land before I do something we'll all regret."

Rand was snarling and spitting like a cat by that point; so unlike himself that I was at a loss as to what to do. He slammed his hat down on his head and walked off to the wood pile and started slamming the big ax so hard into a stump that he'd been cutting up that I thought he was after making us some toothpicks.

Mitch caught me staring and said, "He'll come around, just give him time."

I looked at him and whispered, "I've … I've never seen him like this Mitch. I understand this could have gone badly it but didn't . I'm usually the one that is all bent out of shape and he's the one that is usually calm, cool, and collected."

"It's different when a man sees his home under attack. But the truth is Kiri you are getting a peek at the old Rand, the angry young man he was when he was a teenager. There were plenty of times when I pulled him and … and Chase out of stuff and Rand would be just like this. He's done a lot of growing up Kiri and you've done amazing things for him but every once in a while a man's got a reason to get angry and this is one of those times so the old Rand is coming out. Give him time to cool off. He'll be fine."

That wasn't a lot of comfort but at least it was a little bit of explanation. As for "cooling off" he hasn't done much of that. He's trying but he is still really angry. He's not taking it out on Austin or I – he played a round of checkers with Austin and acted like he was listening to the next chapter of _Johnny Tremain_ that I was reading. But I could tell, even Austin could tell, he was still wound tight. The only reason Rand is asleep now is because he is exhausted. He works from before sun up to after sun down and with the days growing longer that means the hours worked are growing as well.

I understand why Rand is angry I'm just not sure I understand why he is angry the way he is. I can guess and it all goes back to SueLinda. It might make some women jealous, the amount of energy he's devoted to being angry at this woman, but not me. I'm resentful but of SueLinda, not at Rand. I'm telling you though, if he catches up with her tomorrow, I hope there is someone there to stop him. I'm a little worried that he is so angry that he really will do something he'll regret.

 **March 31** **st** – Stupid, stupid, stupid. And I was worried about Rand.

 **April 1** **st** – Wish I could lay this all at the door of some bad April's Fool joke but nope, I've gone and done it again. The problem is that I'm not real sure I regret it, any of it. I'm tired of being sorry for being me. And I'll be doggone if I'll apologize to that hellcat. I hope her face is wrecked for good … well, maybe not, but maybe a little bit I do. I don't know. I don't know quite how I feel about it at this point.

Missy came over early in the morning yesterday to discuss some pre-orders and to see about maybe paying me to make some general stock to keep at the Shack. It would be a little bit of speculating on her part but she thinks that she can catch a few more customers with impulse buys.

"If the women could just see what it is that they are pre-ordering that might also help encourage some sales. I can understand the not wanting to buy a pig in a poke. Oh here," she said bringing in a satchel of material, "I brought more cotton cloth for the bras and under clothes. Some of this stuff is really light weight so maybe you can put some lace around the edges and stuff? Could be used for Sunday wear and the heavier muslin cloth can be used for every day. Hey … where's Rand off to this time of day? Got another field to mow?"

"No," I said, glad she had finally stopped talking long enough for me to decide to ask her about SueLinda. She'd also given me the perfect opening.

We'd been gossiping for over an hour while we planned out what I could trade at the Shack that would likely bring in the greatest return when I heard wagon wheels coming down our road a little fast. It's funny, with cars gone wagons wheels are now as distinct as engine noises were. I knew right away that the wagon wasn't ours … especially since it was sitting in the barn … and I also knew it wasn't one that I had heard before. It was too quiet and for some reason that disturbed me.

Then I heard Austin try to get a yell out only to have it cut off … and Woofer's snarl and then yelp. The next sound though sent ice right through me. SueLinda had a snarl to match Woofer's. "Take it all. I want it all. What we don't take, destroy it."

Missy said she made a grab for me but I brushed her off and put my hands on the .357 that I kept in my kitchen. It was loaded with hollow points. It didn't look as fancy as the one Rand had but Clyde said it was just powerful and the hollow points are the kind of bullets that make a mess of whatever they hit. Missy grabbed my rifle.

I peeked out the window and saw Austin fighting the woman. She had him around the throat with her hand over his mouth. As I watched she turned loose of him just long enough to grab him by the hair and slap him across the face several times before putting him back in the choke hold. I didn't know what had happened to Woofer, if he had still been mobile he would have already ripped SueLinda's throat out.

The man was heading into the barn and I couldn't let him. I didn't see a weapon on SueLinda but a quick thought had me pocketing the .357 into my apron and grabbing the rifle from Missy. She fought me briefly for it but she let go when she saw the look in my eyes. I went into the Great Room, cracked the door, and with a couple of shots took the back of the guy's head off. It happened so fast. The other man turned, pulling a gun and I put three rounds in his torso. I noticed another women running away and I put a round in her big backside and she went down squalling.

I was gone away in my head. I had had all I was going to take from this woman. "Austin, kick her in the shins and bite her hand. Jam a thumb in her eye if she won't let go."

SueLinda was so shocked at what she'd walked into that she didn't even think to defend herself when Austin followed my instructions to the letter.

Missy later said that I was just about the scariest thing she's ever seen; strangely she meant it as a compliment. As soon as Austin was clear I raised the rifle and told SueLinda, "You have just used up the last of your nine lives. Isn't it enough that you bring up bad memories for Rand every time your name is mentioned? You have been in my face and Rand's face since you showed up around here. You've instigated and started rumors. You've done your level best to cause problems. Now you sic those poor people on us and when that doesn't work you have the nerve to show up here, at our home, and just steal what doesn't belong to you? Are you out of your mind or do you just have a death wish?!"

All she did was snarl at me. For a microsecond I was tempted to send her to her Maker but then I thought of Rand and knew that I had to give him time to resolve this in some other way. But I'll be doggone if I'm going to stand there and let myself be attacked … even if I wasn't pregnant. I switched the safety to on, switched the rifle around and swung it like a bat. I caught her a hard crack that apparently broke her cheek bone, her jaw, broke some teeth, and cut that side of her face up pretty good. It also knocked her out cold.

I stood there heaving and then promptly threw up all over my own shoes because I couldn't seem to move.

Austin was stumbling back under the weight of Woofer; that gave me something to focus on. He was crying … Austin, not Woofer. Woofer was out of it. "They shot him. They shot him."

"Easy Austin, I don't see any blood," I tried to reassure him.

"It was some kind of dart. I pulled it out and brought Woofer home. Can you fix him Kiri?!"

"Austin, calm down. Let's lay Woofer on the porch. Come on. Now, put your hand on his chest … feel it going up and down? Feel his heart? I think … I think it was just some kind of tranq gun, like animal control used to use … the dog catcher. Why don't you sit with him and keep him out of the sun. He might be out for a while but I'm sure he'll be happy to know that you are looking after him. OK?"

When I turned around there was Missy. She couldn't decide whether to smile or look stern. In the end she just sighed and said, "I tied witchy poo up. You better come up with a good one. Rand is going to go nuclear."

Oh, nuclear didn't even come close. He was hollering and bellowing so loud and so fast that I couldn't even understand half of what he was saying. I'd barely had time to clean my boots up when the thunder of a bunch of hooves came down the lane. The woman that I had shot in the rear end had escaped on us but gotten caught by some of Mr. Henderson's men and spilled the story. She didn't care that she was incriminating herself, she just wanted away from the crazy, fat girl that lived down the lane.

And of course Henderson's men had radioed it in and then Rand got wind of it … and Bill did too which was fun watching Missy get basically the same treatment as I did. However Missy turned the table on Bill and said that if the men in the community wouldn't spend so much ever loving time watching SueLinda's girls' nether regions we wouldn't be in this situation. Missy is a piece of work. By the time she was through every man there felt guilty whether they had any reason to or not.

Except for Rand. He was still snorting and snarling and I was very tempted to tell him I didn't feel well … but that would have been an out and out lie. I was feeling better than I had in a while. That doesn't say much for my character I'm sure but nevertheless it's true. Instead I stood there and let him wind down.

"Don't you have anything to say for yourself?!"

"Rand, you're right. SueLinda is a nasty person. The situation was horrible. People could have been hurt. If it hadn't been as bad as it was I never would have done what I did."

That shut his mouth so I continued. "I'm standing here because you've helped me get to the point where I'm a capable woman. This is our home. Had you been here you would have done what I did … except maybe the bang up side of SueLinda's head. But you were off trying to prevent the situation from escalating. SueLinda however is unreasonable and chose to make the situation what it is. I knew you would be along shortly and that is what gave me the courage to do what had to be done. You've worked too hard, I've worked too hard, to get where we are. There comes a time when you have to put up or shut up. You and I have said everything we could to keep SueLinda at bay … she refused. That's all there is to it." Then I walked into his arms in front of everyone startling him to no end since he knows public displays make me uncomfortable. "Thank you Rand for teaching me the skills I need to survive and that I am capable of doing what has to be done."

I got some mumbled response in return but he hugged me back, though it was a kind of sideways hug since my belly is getting in the way of just about all the fun stuff these days.

Rand is still upset. Not at me, just at the entire situation. Austin is better after Ken looked Woofer over. The drug wasn't long lasting but we have to keep an eye on him a couple of days just to be on the safe side. The boy and dog went to bed early, both of them feeling the effects of too much excitement.

After Austin was asleep Rand worked off his fear by keeping me close and then closer still. It was good for both of us. It was comfort and being comforted, making needed connections that run deeper than words. It was accessing the intimacy that reassured both of us that we were still here, still together, still operating as a team.

Today has been a little trying. Rand has insisted that I relax and not do much. It was a swap meet day but we didn't attend. I should have done laundry today but Rand said forget it. I had a lot of planting to do today but Rand put a chair out in the garden and would only let me direct the work, not participate in it.

What I was allowed to do was sit in the shade and prepare the carrots and broccoli that was picked so it could go on the dehydrator. Monday I'll be canning carrots whether Rand is ready for me to or not. I cannot get behind. In fact I need to get ahead as much as possible because everything I'm hearing about having babies – both the birth part and the raising part – says they are an awful lot of work and take a whole lot of time and attention. That means I'll have even less time to do the necessary work. But I'm not going to think about that motherhood stuff right now. I'm wiggy enough as it is.

Mitch came by today after the swap meet. He was worried that either I was sick or that we weren't sure of our reception out in the community. Rand popped off a little bit and said, "Ask me how much I care whether anyone in the 'community' disapproves of the fact that SueLinda got what was coming to her."

"Easy Rand. You've got it wrong. I know for a fact that there are plenty of women that are ready to defend Kiri to anyone that might be stupid enough to say she did anything other than what SueLinda forced her to do. Most of them are saying they would have simply pulled the .357 and put a period to a rabid animal."

I thought that was taking it a little far and broke in, "Aw Mitch, that's a bit much. Rabid animals can't control themselves. SueLinda could have, she simply chose not to."

"I don't disagree with you there. I hope you know that brother of yours is three-quarters crazy too."

"Oh no, what has Ram done now." I looked over at Rand for support only I caught a look before he was able to hide it. "Rand! What are you and Ram up to?"

Mitch decided that he'd best make a quick exit which told me that whatever it was I wasn't likely to be enamored of it. "Rand …"

"Easy Kiri. It isn't that bad."

"Uh huh."

"Ram needed a little backing and he's going to make a few business deals."

"Uh huh."

"I took some of those Sand Dollars left over from what Mr. Barnes sent. Gave them to Ram to invest."

"Uh huh … and …"

"Look, SueLinda is able to attract the business that she does not just because of her 'girls' but because she runs a pretty profitable black market operation. Ram is just … instigating a bit and creating some competition."

"He's what? And you're backing him?"

"We are … I know we didn't discuss it but I had to make the decision quick."

"Rand, you know I don't know doodly about the money stuff. I trust you with that … no, don't go getting all righteously indignant, I'm not in the mood for it and you sure aren't going to use it to distract me from figuring out what you and Ram are up to."

"Aw Babe."

"Don't 'aw Babe' me Rand Joiner. I expect this kind of craziness out of Ram but if that crazy hermano is going to start dragging you into it … all too willingly apparently … I'm gonna at least know what it is and have my say on it."

At his continued discomfort and the fact that he was taking so long to come up with a story I figured it out for myself and I was NOT happy. "Tell me … oh tell me … that Ram hasn't talked you into investing in some crazy scheme to take over the black market that SueLinda was operating."

"We aren't black marketers, we're legitimate businessmen."

"I am going to skin that crazy …"

"Calm down. The only part I'm involved in is a financial backer. You said you trust me."

"Of course I trust you so don't do the puppy dog eyes thing. That's not what I'm upset about. Rand you and I both know that those river smugglers are nothing to fool with. Not even the military messes with them unless they get out of hand too far inland. I can't believe that you'd intentionally get involved with something like that! What if they take a mind to weed out of the competition and catch you … you or Ram … out someplace and … deal with you?"

"Babe, I'm not the only backer that Ram has."

"Who else has he talked into this madness?!"

"Bill, Clyde, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Coffey."

"What?!"

"Babe, listen to me. Something has to be done. They are beginning to blockade sections of the river making it next to impossible to get things unless you run it overland. We are doing fine but most people have to trade for what they need. Henderson has run into the problem several times and he's looking at this as a nonviolent way of dealing with the problem."

"I don't think those river smugglers know how to be nonviolent."

"Be that as it may, let's give it a try. One way or the other this can't continue and I'd rather be on the side that makes a difference … and potentially a profit … than on a side that just sits around letting those criminals just take over things."

So. I'm not sure what to think. I guess we have to give this a try but I have a bad feeling that this is just a stopgap measure than is only going to force the violence to come to a head sooner rather than later.


	90. Chapter 89

Chapter 89

 **April 3** **rd** – I didn't feel like writing yesterday, I was simply too overwhelmed. Geez, listen to me. I sound like that what's-her-name … Scarlet O'Hara in that movie _Gone With the Wind_. "I can't think about that right now. If I do I'll go crazy. I'll think about it tomorrow." Oh please, I'm not normally this much of a drama queen but witnessing what I did yesterday was just too much.

I made some bad assumptions. I left it up to others after I'd done my part. I thought that doing my part was enough, that I'd finally acted enough that the problem would go away or at least no longer threaten Rand and I personally. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Yesterday morning Mr. Henderson rode up with Mitch and Hoss and asked to speak with Rand and I together; Austin as well since he was a witness despite still being a young boy. SueLinda and that other woman … Cali something or other … had been turned over to the military for their crimes. Unfortunately on Sunday morning they were being released because some blood sucking lawyer had proved that the military didn't have any jurisdiction over them in this particular case.

A citizens' group … basically a glorified posse … captured them just beyond sight of the military compound and brought them to Mr. Henderson to ship them out of town to get rid of the problem since the military wouldn't. Mr. Henderson's concern with that was that the two women would only hook back up with the criminal element and come back to haunt us all at a later date.

Mr. Henderson wanted to know whether I would agree to appear before a community trial and accept whatever was decided rather than seek my own revenge against SueLinda. I looked at Rand who had a very hard expression on his face.

"Rand? I … I didn't plan this .. I …"

"I know Babe. SueLinda did this, now she can sleep in the bed she's made for herself."

So that's how we all wound up spending the rest of the day outside of what is left of City Hall and the old County Jailhouse. The trial such as it was didn't last but two hours. One hour and fifty minutes was all of the testimony regarding SueLinda's activities, her threats against the community in general and Rand and I in particular, and how even under the current circumstances she continued to make death threats to anyone aiding and abetting their jailers. The other ten minutes were spent by the jury trying to write up an official sounding verdict and figuring out who was supposed to read it to the court.

It's not that I hadn't expected SueLinda to be found guilty; what I hadn't expected was how swiftly "justice" would be carried out. Every time I think of it I want to lose my lunch. I'm pretty sure that SueLinda and that other woman didn't expect it either. They were screaming and hollering right up to the bitter end. Within thirty minutes of the verdict being read they were swinging from the limb of an old oak tree that had grown from the acorn of another oak that had been used for that same purpose a hundred years before. The other woman died immediately. SueLinda took a while because her neck hadn't snapped as it was supposed to have done.

Rand took us home; I walked in the house, laid down and pulled the covers over my head. A few minutes later Rand came in and lay down beside me and held me while I cried like a baby. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

"I know Babe. I know. But it had to be done."

I sat up, "Had to?! What's this had to stuff?! People chose to do this. I never thought I'd see someone hung in my life Rand. That's Old West stuff reserved for horse thieves, bank robbers, and murderers for crying out loud. I can't believe I was a part of this."

"And what? How did you think this was going to end? Life in prison? Who would be the jailers? Who would support that system? Where would the jail be?"

"I … I …"

"Babe, look at me. SueLinda had a choice and she made it. We as a community could not allow her actions to go unanswered."

"But look at all the things I've done Rand. Am I going to find myself swinging from that tree one day?!"

"No! No. You … look at me Babe … self defense is completely different from what SueLinda was punished for. You know it. I know you still feel guilty for some of the lives you've taken, so do I. But we only did it when we were faced with no other choice, generally because we were facing death ourselves. This is a completely different situation. SueLinda premeditated her actions and they were designed to destroy us. When she couldn't accomplish what she wanted through the actions of others she finally did the dirty deed herself … and now she's paid for it."

He held me and then I asked him more quietly, "Where do we go from here?"

"Us or the community?"

"Both."

"Well, we just keep doing what we're doing, harming none unless harmed. Defending ourselves when necessary. We've always stayed out of other people's business and I don't see that changing. As for the community, hopefully this will get people to think. We've got a lot of folks that have just been going along, letting things degenerate into a free for all. We've got some people who like it like that. But we've also got people in this community that need protection from those that would take advantage of them … widows, orphans, old folks, and the like. All communities need rules to live by, and if you have rules you have to have consequences if those rules get broke."

"But where does this end? I don't want to go back to the days where people like Mr. Harbinger rode around on horses telling people what they could and couldn't do."

"No one does … well, no one with any sense does. Look Kiri, it didn't get broke in one day and it isn't going to get fixed in one day either. Hopefully what happened today was an anomaly. Most people don't want to hurt other people just for the sake of hurting them. Most people around here don't steal either. This was just an extreme example of what could go wrong and what our community could be facing here on out. And it might not have been a bad thing for it to happen now. Set the precedent and those refugees that are coming in might think twice before pulling a similar stunt in our community."

"What about every place else."

"I can't deal with that Babe. Every place else is going to have to take care of their own just like we are doing."

I could barely eat yesterday and what I did manage to eat came right back up when Ram, Clyde, and Bill came over to discuss their so-called business venture.

I heard Austin yell, "Rand! Kiri's puking again!"

Rand came in, took a look at my face and said, "Bed. Now."

And that's where I stayed the rest of the evening. But you can't hide from life if you plan on living it so I got up this morning and tried to not let the image of the two women swinging in the breeze get to me. Paul came over about lunch time and I overheard him and Rand talking.

"Just wanted you to know they took the bodies down about an hour ago. Some lawyer tried to drag the military back into it but didn't have any luck because the base commander refuses to get involved with what he calls civilian affairs. The Judge had some people bury the two women out in that field behind where Walmart used to be."

"Thanks for the letting me know."

"Gran wants to know how Kiri is. She figures she is taking it pretty hard."

"And then some. She wants to know where this is going to end."

"Yeah, Gran has wondered as much herself but I don't see as any of us were left much choice. They wouldn't have stopped with your place. They'd just kept on and on."

I hope that we haven't taken the first step down a long hard road. What's that saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions? I've felt that way more than a few times over the last year but now I've got a baby to think about. This isn't just my future that is being worked out, but his too.

 **April 4** **th** – I've promised myself not to dwell on the hanging so much. It isn't healthy. I don't know that it is any healthier to ignore it but there has to be some middle ground where I can accept it and take precautionary note of what it could mean without it creeping into my nightmares which is what it did last night. I saw Rand and Austin and some little baby all strung up like SueLinda was. Each body had a sign that said "stepped over the line." I could hear the creaking of the rope against the tree limb. I woke up so upset that even listening to Rand's snoring couldn't comfort me. I never did get back to sleep and was up and had breakfast cooking before the guys even had both eyes open. Rand knows it is still bothering me but this is something I'm just going to have to work through on my own this time.

Work has helped. The tomatoes are coming in and since I planted so many we're going to have an abundance again this year. I also picked the first of the cauliflower, pearl onions, and sweet yellow onions. The pearl onions I pickled and canned. I braided the tops of the yellow onions together and hung them upstairs in the dormer room. I'm going to pull another row of onions tomorrow and slice them up and dry them to make dried chopped onion, dried minced onion, onion powder, and onion salt all of which I'm getting low on.

For dinner tonight I made homemade chips and salsa and bean burritos. The guys were in hog heaven but it didn't set to well on my stomach. Guess the baby must not like the hot stuff right now. I think I'll go to bed early and try and rest up. I haven't felt too good today. Lack of sleep most likely.

 **April 5** **th** – not lack of sleep. Stupid blood pressure.

 **April 6** **th** – I'm starting to hate this bed.

 **April 7** **th** – Free at last. I'm getting down right irritated at this blood pressure stuff. Ken said it was stress related. Who doesn't have stress these days?! Just so tired all of the time. I can't even move without running into stuff. You can see me coming around the corner before I even get there. And I'm getting this knarly stretch mark that itches all of the time. I'm putting lotion on it but Missy says that I can forget ever looking like I looked before. I didn't want to tell her but I was no prize before I got big and fat with this baby.

But even if Ken hadn't given the all clear I needed to be up and moving today. Tomorrow we plant peanuts and we've got family coming over to help. Austin is wound tighter than a top because the boys will be here. Brendon will be here too as will Clyde. Uncle George was going to be here but he's got gout and is laid up and feeling as miserable as I did from what we hear. I'm sending home some blueberry juice when they go back. Blueberry juice isn't as good for gout as black cherry juice is supposed to be, but it is worth a try. I looked it up in Momma's files and Uncle George needs to drink lots of water, cut down on beans, lentils and red meat and raise his intake of dairy. Hopefully that will help. Gout sounds awful. Who wants to have a swollen and sore big toe?!

For the baking today I made several loaves of Irish Soda Bread to go with the beans, tomatoes, greens, fried corn, and venison meat loaf that will be tomorrow's main meal. For the bread I took rough four cups of flour, one teaspoon of salt, three teaspoons of baking powder, one teaspoon of baking soda, and one quarter cup of sugar and sifted it all together. Then I used a pastry blender to cut in one quarter cup of butter which gave me a very crumbly dough. In another bowl I beat together one egg and on and three quarter cup of buttermilk. Then I stirred the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mixed well.

Once I got it to a decent consistency I turned the dough out onto my floured bread board … nothing fancy, it's just a cutting board that I use to knead bread on and nothing else. I kneaded the bread for about two minutes or until it was smooth. Then I divided the dough in half and formed each half into a nice round loaf.

I put each round loaf onto a greased cake pan and pressed it down a tad to flatten it out. Then I took a sharp pair of kitchen shears and cut crosses in the top of each loaf about half an inch deep. I baked the loaves for 30 minutes, maybe a tad longer, at 375 F until they were nice and browned. I did this three times so I have six loaves. It used a lot of flour but we've been eating so much cornmeal lately that I felt the need to splurge since we were having company.

I am completely ready for bed. We have to get up earlier than normal. Tomorrow looks like it is going to be a long, full day.

 **April 9** **th** – Was too tired to write last night and haven't had time today until now. Thank goodness the Lord planned to have at least one day off a week or I can see a lot of people just dropping in their tracks from exhaustion.

Yesterday we planted nearly five acres in peanuts. There were three kinds – runners, Virginias, and Spanish. When I heard how many pounds we were supposed to get from each acre I thought I was hearing things. Rand and the other men claim we should get about two thousand pounds of peanuts per acre. I asked what on earth they expected us to do with all those peanuts and Rand said to think of George Washington Carver. I'm ashamed to say I had to go look that one up.

I wasn't allowed in the field and it didn't break my heart at all. The idea of bending to plant all of those little legumes just about gave me a back ache just thinking about it. Each seed is planted about two inches deep, one every three or four inches, in rows about three feet apart. In about two weeks, the first "square" of four leaflets will unfold above the peanut field and I'm really anxious to see it. I'm not the only one. Several families are going to be counting on peanut production for everything from a protein source to oil to animal feed and other stuff beyond. Mr. Coffey said that the meal that is normally made from the pressed peanuts (left over from capturing the oil) can be ground and used by humans as well.

Thirty to forty days after the plants bloom, "pegs" form and enter the soil. The peanut shells and kernels develop and mature during the next 60 to 70 day period. Depending on the variety, 120 to 160 frost free days are required for a good crop.

The noon day meal was a hit but the guys were back at it before I could even finish my own meal and I was left looking at a lot of empty, but dirty, dishes to wash. I was at that until it was time for everyone to leave. I managed to get in a few loads of laundry at the same time but I couldn't bend over and pick up the blasted laundry basket so I had to carry a few pieces at a time from the rinse tub to the clothes line. I'm going to ask Rand to put a basket onto a rolling table for me when he can find the time. My balance is all out of whack and bending over can lead to some interesting problems.

All three of us went to bed tired. Austin nearly fell asleep in his dinner plate and he hasn't done that in a while. Even Woofer and Fraidy were tired. Fraidy was out hunting moles and Woofer was scaring off the ravens that kept trying to get to the peanuts. Clyde took care of the ravens with some birdshot. All I can hope is that their family doesn't come looking for them.

The same topic was raised after the church service today only with regard to the friends in low places that SueLinda had. The girls quickly found other "protectors" and moved onto another part of the river much to some men's chagrin. I don't think I know anyone that was using their … uh, services … but some men from Columbia county sure got bent out of shape after finding them gone. They reported that the ship was empty and had been scuttled. Looks like the river rats strike again.

I expected to receive some censure from some people but the exact opposite was true. It was like I was being surrounded and protected from something. I didn't have to wait long to find it out. Straight from the pulpit in Ken's sermon came the message against treachery, that we had people in our community accused of unrighteous behavior, sending lions to slaughter the innocent. I started wondering what on earth was going on because I'd never heard Ken preach like that. Then I noticed a lot of people nodding like they understood exactly what he was referring to.

"Brothers and sisters, we have had a woman in our midst who admitted with purposeful intent sharing information that she had no business sharing. Her intent was to see others in our midst harmed, even killed, for revenge. She and her common law husband have left this area, going north to find their fortune elsewhere. Let us take this as a warning to gird ourselves against such a temptation we may one day find ourselves facing. Deuteronomy, Hebrews, and Romans all tell us the Lord has said, 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.'"

He went on like that at length but I had a bad case of acid indigestion by the time it was all over. Momma O and Mrs. Withrow never let me out of their sight during the dinner on the grounds and I was summarily handed over to Rand when it was time to go. He was silent almost all the way home.

"Rand? What … who was Pastor Ken going on about?"

We were turning onto our lane and Rand gave a deep sigh before replying. "SueLinda had been asking around but couldn't find out anything about our location until she started manipulating Lucretia."

"Lucretia?! No …. No, no, no. All of this was because …"

Rand pulled on the reins and turned me to look at him, "We are not even going down that road. Lucretia made her choice. She got herself in this fix. You can't keep getting a complex over this stuff."

"I'm not getting a complex." When his eyebrow did a Mr. Spock impression I said, "OK so I've got a little complex about this kind of stuff but Rand …"

"No but Rand … period. Babe, let this one go. Just let it go. It's over."

I want to believe that but, I really do but something tells me that it's not going to be that simple.


	91. Chapter 90

Chapter 90

 **April 10** **th** – Today was beautiful. I tried to take Rand's advice and just "let go" of it for a little while; "it" being an increasing paranoia that somehow something had been set in motion at the trial and hanging that was going to have very long term consequences. Of course "it" may be been put in motion even before that; my choice to confront certain people, develop a certain reputation, etc. But if you want to go back even further than that my choice to leave Tampa, my choice to … this is ridiculous; Rand is right, when do I let someone else take responsibility for their share of what has happened and just accept that some things happen for a reason beyond my understanding.

So, to begin again, today was beautiful. It really was and I almost missed how beautiful things have become. The last of the dogwood blossoms are leaving the trees. The redbuds are almost all gone. And the azalea bushes are all bloomed out for the season. The bright yellow Jessamine is also just passed its peak. I missed paying attention to the camellias completely with my head stuck in the worry bucket.

But I won't miss the daylilies and African irises because they are full of buds that are absolutely dying to be noticed. The plumbago looks like it is going to bloom late this year so I won't miss it either. And the warm rains we've been having have really got the Mexican heather seeking notice. There's other stuff, mostly what folks would consider weeds but it's still pretty … when you bother to stop working long enough to work.

At Sparkleberry Ranch today I might very well be the only one that did stop to look. The men were over and cutting the wheat. I thought they were going to harvest it today, as in thresh it and the whole nine yards but Clyde only laughed at me. He doesn't know me very well do he. Rand, Brendon, and the boys were watching me all day and had just started to relax when I struck … but that was later.

First they had to wait until all the dew was dried up on the wheat. Rand explain that if you didn't you were just asking for trouble in the form of mold and other stuff that would ruin all of your hard work of the year. While they did that they worked a bit on the incline. Rand had gotten the thing months ago and had, by bits and pieces, rebuilt it. The only thing left to do was mend the "belt" that the animals would walk on that would turn the gears. The gears in turn would act as a power source the for large grain mill that Rand and Mr. Coffey's son had built together.

They didn't work on it too long because just as soon as it was time they hurried out to the binder machine that Rand had already put back together. The binder was drawn by Bud and Lou. If the mules had been any smaller they would have needed a larger team but Bud and Lou were bred for this kind of work. Rand said this is how they did it back in the 1920s. As the binder was drawn down the field it would cut the stalks of grain and gather them into bundles. The bundles were then gathered into windrows to finish drying. The binder that Rand had wasn't an automatic binder, what it did was it bundled the wheat and then a man could bind it with string at the end of the process. It was more manual labor but at the same time it meant that they could use whatever string was on hand and didn't have to stick to what would fit in a machine feeder.

All of the grain was ready to cut. I asked Rand how he knew and he showed me that with the wheat, when the grain head was turning golden and the kernel was hard, but could still be dented with your thumbnail, it was ready. The oats, rye, and triticale were ready too according to Clyde who ought to know since he in his forestry post did a lot of side work with the extension office up here. Rand said with the good, sunny weather we've been having it won't take long for the grain to completely cure … get too hard to dent with your thumbnail in the case of the wheat … and then they'll be able to use the other machine thresh it.

Rand says by the beginning of the coming week they'll be able to thresh the wheat and the other grains as well hopefully. After all of the grain fields were cut and bound into bundles, they stopped long enough to eat a decent meal. After that and a few minutes to let their stomachs settle they headed back out and stacked the bundles. They'd take from eight to ten of the bundles and stack them together into a shock, similar to what I had done with the corn to let it dry in the field. They've left the shocks in the field but it is going to be guarded so I'll be feeding extra mouths at every meal for at least a week. I don't mind it because Rand seems to be happy.

Tonight Rand and Brendon are on guard. Clyde had to go home and change. See, I was still stewing a bit about his laughing at me. I know I'm a bit of a city girl still. I have good commonsense and if just given a moment or a reasonable explanation I can figure things out. I rarely have to ask more than once. After laughing at me a bit Clyde went way out of his way to over explain stuff to me. I thought he was just being nice at first, maybe even thought I was a bit simple or something, but then I saw Brendon and Rand making a face like they were waiting for the explosion and caught Clyde smirking when he turned away. Uh uh, you know I couldn't leave that unchallenged.

As the day wore on it got pretty warm. Didn't help that I spiked Clyde's greens with a little extra flavor. He likes things spicy so I helped him along by encouraging him to try my jalapeno peppers and the like. Clyde didn't have much sense. He couldn't resist the challenge. Melly is just such a pushover that Clyde was getting a little big for his britches. She bows to his every wish. Now I try and cooperate with Rand as much as possible but Rand never takes that for granted and never … well usually not ever … does he get over the top with the chauvinism. Like Momma always said, "in the right doses chauvinism can be wonderful, but too much will ruin your whole day."

Clyde was getting pretty warm. And I was just egging him on to the point that Rand and Brendon both caught on. Then Ram shows up. He knew right away what was going on and he knows he owes me for getting Rand involved in his latest scheme. So he cooperated just a tad. Ram's stomach is made of cast iron and so is his tongue. He's never met a pepper yet that he hasn't made friends with. I've seen him pop those little Thai peppers like candy on a bet. Well, I had some of those Thai peppers pickling. All it takes is a dash to season something on the warm side. Ram ate a whole pepper and then Clyde at one.

I nearly laughed out loud but I supposed I have to give it to Clyde, he didn't lose his composure … at least not yet. Then Ram at another pepper telling me they were some of the best he'd ever had. Clyde followed suit and you could tell he was getting down right uncomfortable. Ram popped a third one and gave me the eye like "this better work little sister cause I'm about done in myself." Well, Clyde let his swagger override his commonsense and when he took that third one and chewed it up he got fired up.

Rand told me I was laughing so hard he thought I was going to go into premature labor. Clyde drank everything on the table and was still burning up so Rand, doing his own bit of laughing, pushed him over to the laundry area and pulled the handle that dumped my cold water all over him. I laughed until I could stand to laugh any more.

"My Gawd Rand! She's nothing but pure vinegar," Clyde wheezed still trying to get his breath back.

Rand, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes and trying to avoid Ram, Brendon, and the boys that were rolling on the ground still laughing their heads off said, "Hey man, I tried to warn you."

Clyde is a good guy, he was eventually able to laugh at himself. "Anyone ever wants to go up agin' you girl I'm gonna make for dang sure I'm on your side."

 **April 11** **th** – I don't mind the company but it makes me feel more self-conscious. I fixed fried grits and sausage with biscuits for breakfast and had Austin take plates out to Rand and Brendon. About twenty minutes after he left I heard two rife shots then what I thought was screaming. It like to have scared me to death because I wasn't expecting the noise. It also brought visions of raiders. I grab my rifle and stumble out the door when Austin comes tearing back home yelling, "Momma get inside!" He was dragging Woofer with him and Woofer didn't want to come in the house.

"Brendon only knicked an old razorback and he is bad sick. Rand said he looks like he has psuedorabies and they are trying to get him before he can get near the livestock. Where's Fraidy?"

"In … in the house with the kittens."

"Phew. Rand said people can't get it but livestock and other animals can and they'll spread it all over."

It was a second before I replayed what he said and realized he'd called me "Momma." We realized what he said at the same time. He grabbed me around the waist and said, "Please don't be mad."

I hugged him and said, "Of course I'm not mad."

"Can I? Just every once in a while? I'm trying it out to see if it sticks."

I couldn't help but laugh and my belly jumped knocking into him. "You're what?"

"I asked Rand and he said I could do it in my head to see if I like calling you and Rand like you were my parents and stuff. You sure you ain't mad?"

"Ain't isn't proper grammar. And yes, I'm sure I'm not mad."

"Some of the boys at church said you might not like it because it would make you feel old to have a son my age."

"Well, you can tell those boys at church that it is none of their business what makes me feel old and what doesn't but that for a fact I … I love you Austin and I meant it when I said that you could have a home with us for as long as you wanted."

"Even if that is forever and ever?"

"Even if that is forever and ever."

I got a gap-toothed grin where he's lost another molar and that's when we heard a third and fourth shot. A minute later Brendon came down the road say, "We got it. Wasn't psuedorabies. Looks like somebody put an arrow in him but didn't bring him down. Massive infection, wouldn't have lived much longer anyway. Can't take a risk with the meat though, might be infection in the blood. Austin? Rand says to get the two round shovels and bring 'em on so we can get that porker underground before he starts stinking."

That wasn't the only excitement of the day. The potatoes were ready to dig and I surprised Brendon with a five pound bag to take home. And for dinner I fixed Rand and Clyde baked potatoes, ham slices, mixed peas and carrots, and cornbread muffins. I tell you I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing baked potatoes. We're going to have to be careful though because I have to save some back for planting next season and I'm not quite sure how to do it. I should ask Momma O but not until I have enough to share with her. It wouldn't be fair to ask and not share, especially the way things are these days.

In addition to the potatoes that Austin helped me dig up the first heads of cabbage were ready and so where the big red hamburger onions. I started a crock of saur kraut and tried to fix a pot of cabbage for dinner but the smell made me heave so bad Clyde finished it up for me. Rand asked me to go lay down for a while and I did just to humor him but I slept away three hours of the day before I realized it. The only reason I woke up was because I had to go to the bathroom so badly.

When I did wake up I felt a lot better and even Clyde said my color was better. I caught him and Rand talking and then they'd stop so I figure they're whispering about me. I'd like to know what it is about. When Rand starts worrying my life gets complicated.

 **April 12** **th** – I don't know what makes my ankles swell worse, being on my feet all day or sitting down. The sewing was backing up so since the boys came over and were helping Rand guard the grain shocks they also helped in the garden. I've got stuff sitting in the cooler to do but I'll get to it tomorrow.

Gee, I'm saying that a lot lately … "I'll just have to get to it tomorrow." Ugh. Seems I've slowed way down. When I complain about it Rand gives me a kiss and says "it's natural." I don't care if it is natural or not, I don't like not being able to bend over and get the chicken eggs or help with the animals. I don't like being so fat I can't see to hoe what is down by my feet.

I did manage to fix the rip in the Austin's sheets. They are getting a little thin in places and Woofer jumped on the bed and that was all she wrote. Not the end of the world but it makes me wonder what we'll do when we go through the last of the large cotton sheet material I have. It also reminds me I need to go through all of my linens to make sure nothing is dry rotting or mildewing in this weather we've been having.

 **April 13** **th** – Spent the day cleaning and canning which means that I'm nearly spent. Rand sent word back to his Uncle that the grain will be ready for threshing tomorrow. Just in time too because tomorrow is baking day and I need to finish up things to take to the Swap Meet. I finished the pre-orders for Missy yesterday, getting fewer of them lately, but I'm getting more orders for the mixes.

Something I'm trying this time is Taco Rice Mix. I take one cup long grain brown rice or white rice, two teaspoons chili powder, one half teaspoon salt, one quarter teaspoon each oregano & cumin & garlic powder, two tablespoons dry onion, one half cup of tomato powder, and Dash red pepper flakes. This comes with instructions to mix it with two tablespoons of oil and three cups of water.

Another thing that I'm giving a try, at least temporarily are spice mixes. I've got a lot of big containers of seasonings that are open from where Aunt Wilma used to go a little nuts at the online spice market. I've also got all these little containers of herbs and spices that came from the houses that were salvaged. And I've got all of my herbs that I've been growing and drying. I made several different varieties and put them in jelly jars and Missy can barter them by the scoopful. Cajun Blackened Seasoning, Fajita Seasoning, Colonel Sanders Chicken Seasoning, homemade chili powder, jerk seasoning, onion powder, garlic powder, I made a case of twelve different seasonings and I hope they do well.

But for now I'm very tired and I'm just gonna go to sleep and let Rand lock things down and spend the night with … I think Brendon is out there again.

 **April 14** **th** – Threshing day was amazing. Each acre of wheat yielded about 35 bushels of wheat and Rand said that was excellent. We have to save back about two bushels for each acre we want to plant next season but that still leaves 33 bushels per acre and we had five acres of wheat. Each bushel weighs sixty pounds, multiply that out by thirty-three bushels and that means we've realized 1980 pounds of wheat per acre times five acres equals just under ten thousand pounds of wheat for this crop. The family has agreed to split it 60/40 since Brendon (and poor Jonathon) helped Rand to do the major work of planting and cultivating. So for us that means that we are going to keep and store roughly six thousand pounds of wheat (100 bushels) not including the seed wheat for next year's crop.

From what Rand has said, a bushel of wheat will yield roughly 42 commercial loaves of bread or forty-two 1.5 pound loaves. One acre of wheat would be more than sufficient to bake our bread for the year which means then we have some for feed and some for trading. Rand and I sat and talked about it tonight. We are going to give a bushel of wheat to Mrs. Withrow and two bushels to Momma O; we are also going to set back some seed wheat for them for next year. Mrs. Withrow doesn't have any family to look after her and she's done so much for us. We know people do look out for her needs but we want to make the firm commitment to do so as well.

What Uncle George and the rest of the family does with their share of the wheat crop is up to them. I know that Clyde is getting a piece of theirs and Ron is as well, but he is putting his back in with the Crenshaw clan since he is living under the roof there. Rand told me that Brendon said that it is just too weird. Ron is "blooming" under Uncle George's attention. Seems Mr. Harbinger always praised the wrong thing with his sons and now that Ron is getting the right kind of feed back he is getting more and more comfortable in the new skin he decided to try on after his brother died. Every once in a while he goes off on his own and that is usually when the guilt over Julia starts eating at him. It is an open secret that Ron didn't love Julia but was trying to do the right thing. It might have worked in the long run but they didn't have time to completely reconstruct their lives. Ron is thinking of reopening the fields that belonged to his now dead father in law and cultivate them for his son's inheritance. I've got enough on my plate without trying to figure out how that is going to work out in the long term.

The oats yielded roughly the same number of bushels as the wheat but there are only 32 pounds per bushel for oats. We had five acres of oats planted and we agreed to the same 60/40 split. The little bit of barley we planted (just one acre of the stuff) only yielded 20 bushels but that is more than enough for our needs since it isn't like Rand is going to use it for beer or moonshine. Triticale was the big producer per acre at 45 bushels. We had six acres in that and Rand got all excited because the triticale is a wheat/rye cross and is used as feed. Uncle George was surprised as all get out that we did so well with it but Rand thinks we can do even better with all the grains next year by rotating them and by figuring out a way to irrigate them. Mr. Coffey and his son have some ideas but that is going to have to wait until after harvest season.

Now Rye we had 15 acres planted and it produces 56 pounds per acre. In other words we've got more rye than we know what to do with on a personal level so after holding back the seed wheat and we agreed that five of the acres we would split 60/40 as with the other small grains but the remaining ten was ours to keep completely and Rand and Ram have been putting their heads together and figure they should be able to get a really good trade for the stuff further south or even in the port cities.

Ram said that a cannery has started up in Plant City; it is apparently an old LDS location. If we can trade some of the product for the cans and oxygen absorbers then I can restock all of the cans that we used that my parents had left and that would mean that we could build up a nice insurance policy against a failed crop or any number of things like that.

I haven't even gotten to how dancing around happy the men were with the straw that each grain left behind after it was threshed. The threshing machine was something to behold. Rand had it set up so that it was powered by a steam engine. The steam engine burned those little briquette things that he and Mr. Coffey's son have gone into shares to build and produce. And I have to say it is one of the first times I've seen Uncle George at a complete loss for words.

The machine is big and noisy and I just about can't stand to be around when it is going. It makes me nervous not to be able to understand what people are saying. What you do first is you load shocks of wheat into a hopper kind of thing in the thresher. Then these gears inside the thresher beat the shocks to separate the kernels of grain from the stalk. Conveyor belts carry the stalks and wheat berries through the machine. Slots in the conveyor belts let the wheat kernels fall into a hopper below the thresher. The stalks are then dumped out of the thresher at the end of the conveyor belt and then gets a name change to straw. Like I said, the quality of the straw coming out of the thresher is very high quality and can be used for animal bedding and lots of other things. I'm going to take some of it and try and weave it into things like floor mats, hats, placemats, and baskets of different sizes. There's a trick to it but I remember hearing Momma O mention something about weaving pine needles so surely if she can do that she can teach me to weave straw.

Once the straw is removed from the kernels and auger moves the grain from the lower hopper to another sifting area in the machine. This second sifting blows most of the remaining dust and small particles out and you are left with fairly clean grain for storage which is then pulled up by another auger, out a spout and into a waiting wagon that takes the grain to storage.

Mr. Henderson and some of his men came around to watch and I swear I saw some of those grown men with tears in their eyes. I guess it is a sign that we really can make it on our own without outside help so long as people in the community pull together.

Tomorrow is Swap Meet Day and we are going. I'm kinda looking forward to it since it seems like forever since I've been to one. Rand is bringing me a folding chair just in case I get to where I can't get around in the crowds. He has the "look" on his face. I mean, I know I'm a little wore out but aren't we all? I'm feeling mostly OK. Ugh, here he comes with my nightly warm milk. I suppose some girls would eat this being coddled up all to pieces but it just feels so weird to me.

 **April 15** **th** – Swap Meet today. Lots of good but lots to think about as well. I had more than one person look at me kind of funny. I know I'm getting big but there's no reason for them to think I'm going to have the baby at any second. I'm not even thirty weeks along yet for goodness sake.

Got there early and got a parking space … well a wagon space … close up. Rand remember the little steps this time but they are wobbly so someone still has to help me get down. Got smart this time and brought the little garden wagon to haul stuff around with. Brought a small bag of all the grains to trade with and we almost couldn't get back to Missy and Bill's area because people kept stopping us to ask what was in the bags. Maybe it was a mistake, I'm not sure.

We weren't the only ones to plant rye by any stretch but we have the only threshing machine in the county … maybe in the tri-county area. Before we left Rand had agreed to three stations … two in Suwannee county and one over in Columbia. It makes me a little uncomfortable but Mr. Henderson has agreed to provide security for a cut of what Rand takes in shares. We'll take it in grain and straw rather than just grain since we already have so much. Oh sure, he could ask for more grain but Rand said he is building goodwill. Give people time to build up their crop and since they know you'll be fair they'll look to your business against next time around.

Had a man from north of us … he was here visiting with his sister … and he traded rye, wheat, and triticale for alfalfa, clover, cotton seed, flax, millet, rape, and vetch. The cotton will go with what we've already planted and we aren't worried about it considering how well it is growing. The other stuff we'll just have to wait and see. It will take a couple of seasons to growing enough to finally have something worth talking about but it fits into Rand's longer term plans to be a self-sufficient operation and it will also allow us to keep more animals … beef cows as well as dairy, enough chickens that we can have the meat more than just every once in a while if that, keep more pigs, goats, and fowl too.

Speaking of farm animals, we might be getting some domestic turkeys. I've always heard they are some of the dumbest creatures walking the face of this earth … not the wild ones, they're supposed to be sneaky smart … but Rand said you could say that about chickens too. I don't know, some of those chickens look like they are planning to take over the world if given have a chance; they just have the funny look in their eye especially when they catch you raiding their nest. Rand thinks he wants to try his hand at rabbit and quail too. Well, we've got both out in the shrubbery and we don't have to feed them but he's talking about domesticated versions. I don't know … quail maybe because I've gotten where I like the birds we keep but rabbits look evil to me.

I know that sounds stupid but when I was little I was bitten by a rabbit and they are a lot more cantankerous than their appearance would suggest. Austin said he thought rabbits were cute and would be fun to raise. I told him, only half joking, that if he wanted more pets to take care of a worm farm would be more helpful and fewer problems. For some reason that suggestion didn't go over as well as I thought and I got a major eye roll from Austin and Rand.

The spice blends and the taco rice mix were both big hits. People keep asking for the recipes and Missy hates giving them out. She said, "Normally I'd love to help folks out but doing this always makes me feel like I'm creating built in obsolescence for the Trade Shack. If we give away all the secrets what use will they have for us down the road?" I suppose I can understand it, but I'd rather do that than stand back and have people resent the role you play in the short term when they feel like they are suffering under a monopoly or something like that. It reminds me of the "goodwill" that Rand said he is trying to build up … it's good for people in the here and now and you hope people will remember it later.

I did pretty well on some trades. I was nervous about a couple of them because Rand wasn't around – he was off talking with a bunch of men about threshing – but I guess I need to accept that if I'm going to be in charge of the kitchen that means I've got to be in charge of other things too. I saw Ram and asked how his family was and he smiled enough to add wattage to the already bright mid-day sun. I think this is the most content I've ever seen Ram in all the time I've known him. I asked him if he'd seen anything in particular at the tables – the crowd was huge and I wasn't sure I wanted to wade into it without good reason – and he told me of a couple that really caught my curiosity.

First table I went to had, among other things, sunflower seeds for sale; not the kind you eat but the kind you plant. I'd planted a couple but something had got a hold of mine and cut them off at the base to get at the bloom … probably a raccoon or rat … so I picked up some new seeds to start real quick and I'm going to plant them inside the fence this time.

Another table had garlic bulbs and Walking onion sets. The garlic would go a long way towards helping me fill in some gaps in my herb garden and the Walking onions – I guess some folks know them by their proper name of Egyptian onions – will mean that I'll have new onion plants every year without having to start from seed which can be a real pain for everything except bunching onions.

Found a couple of more needles for the treadle machine which really made my day. I bent one last week and trying to straighten it I actually broke it. I cried when I did it and had a hard time explaining to Rand why I was so upset. He understood, just didn't understand the crying part.

I wore the moccasins that Rand made for me and boy was I grateful. My ankles and legs really swelled up from being on them so much and because it was so warm today. I'm actually sitting here with my feet up now trying to get them to finish going down. Hope they go down before tomorrow. Having toes that look like little sausages is a total turn off.

 **April 16** **th** – No church service today, just a quiet day sitting around the house being a lump … except for taking care of the animals, feeding the guys, getting the horn worms off of my tomato plants and throwing the jar full into the chickens and experiencing manic glee as the disgusting things added protein to my feather heads' diet.

 **April 17** **th** – Feeling a little sad today for some reason. Had a dream about my old life and realized it is just a year since I left Tampa on my own two feet. Doubt I could make the trip today. I look in the mirror and I'm hardly the same girl I was. I thought all the innocence had been rubbed off of me by the death of my family. I had no idea how much I had left to lose … or to gain. I love Rand. Love him, love him, love him.

OK, obviously I'm having a momentary fit of schizophrenia. First I'm up then I'm down then I'm up again. Is this what they call the moodiness of pregnancy? No wonder Rand gives me funny looks every once in a while. Poor guy.

Rand was gone with the thresher today, he took Austin with him and Ron Harbinger came to help out as well. Ron has lost a lot of weight. I almost didn't recognize him. Rand said he is better than he was. I haven't seen him in a while so he must have been really bad. Hope he can wrap his head around his troubles and work through them.

When the guys got home they were starved. They were supposed to be fed by the group that "hired" the thresher for the day but it was puny fare compared to what they are used to eating. It was nothing but a then gravy over rice with a small piece of cornbread. If I had known that I would have sent a basket along for them to eat out of. You can't work that hard and then eat next to nothing, you'll get sick. I made Ron stay and eat too and after some encouragement and a few bites he really dug into his plate of greens, cornbread, hog jowl, and hoppin' John over rice.

I'm off to bed now that the dinner dishes are finished. Rand and Austin were practically falling asleep on their feet after the animals were taken care of for the evening. I told them to stop pretending that they were awake and it took them both a few minutes to catch on, that's how tired they were. And now that I'm sitting I'm getting tired myself and the quiet house is making me kind of sad again. I'm off to bed before these stupid pregnancy hormones embarrass me by making me cry.

 **April 18** **th** – Yay! I feel normal today. I know that sounds just about stupid but yesterday I can't tell you what was wrong. Up and down and up and down and up and down … it felt like I was on a teeter totter. Today I've been much more balanced. Which was a good thing.

I was just cover the last seed in the new row of bush beans that I got into the ground when who should show up but Momma O and Mrs. Withrow. I was surprised and more than a little embarrassed to be found sweaty and barefoot like that. I asked the ladies to have a seat in the shade of the porch, brought out some cold, sweet tea, and begged their pardon just long enough to run inside and wash up a little bit. When they saw that I had changed clothes they scolded me a bit for fussing over my appearance just because they were around but I couldn't help it.

I had a nice visit and the long and the short of it was they wanted to know how I was feeling and if there was anything that Rand and I needed for the baby. I told them I thought we were doing pretty well all things considered, certainly better than some stories that I had been hearing. I explained that Rand had kind of "planned ahead" when we were salvaging and they both smiled like he was the smartest man they knew. I have to admit I'm fairly partial to him as well.

But they did bring up something that I need to do. I really need to go through everything for the baby and make double sure everything is ready. I also overheard them telling Rand something that I probably wasn't supposed to hear. A young woman that had recently started coming to our church services died giving birth to a little boy. The baby lived but isn't thriving and most likely won't make it either.

I try and not think too hard about something like that happening; me not making it or the baby not making it or both. But the truth is I need to think about it. What will Rand do if something happens to me and he has a baby and Austin to take care of plus Sparkleberry Ranch and everything else? He's been kind of cranky attentive tonight; snapping at me for working too hard or being on my feet too much, not eating enough or not eating more of the healthy stuff. Then he'll turn around and practically smother me with sweetness. I know he is worried but all I can do is ultimately prove that God is watching out for us and just … live … the baby too.

But, on the other hand, just in case … I'm making the baby a memory book. I don't feel like rewriting everything here and it is just something personal for the baby to have just in case. I also need to make sure that I do everything I can to have other stuff prepared … mixes, canned and dried foods, convenience foods, etc. so that … well … just in case. If there is some way I need to find the Judge and talk to him privately and make sure that no one can turn around and take Sparkleberry Ranch away from Rand if something happens to me. I want to make sure that people know what my wishes are.

What a way to end the day. But I have to be practical.


	92. Chapter 91

Chapter 91

 **April 20** **th** – Is this what "nesting" is? This driving need to make sure everything is clean and ready for the baby? Isn't it a little early to be feeling this? Maybe not. The few people I've mentioned it to make it seem like it is some cute, temporary insanity all pregnant women go through. It makes me feel like they are patting me on the head and humoring me and that drives me up the wall even in the best of times. And these aren't the best of times.

Despite all of my promises to myself not to worry things to death, it looks like maybe I've had good reason to worry … well, if not worry at least to be concerned. We heard this morning that raids have started up again along the river. No one is for sure if it is the same group because the methods of attack are different. It might not even be river pirates but people trying to make it look like river pirates or land raiders using the river as a temporary refuge to get them from point A to point B. No one knows … because no survivors of any of the attacks have been found.

People look like they are missing but because of how badly burned over some of the small homesteads and towns are the missing are either unidentifiable from the remains that are found or there is simply too much ground to cover to see if someone ran off or crawled off and died in the undergrowth.

I try not and dwell on it but the only way I can get away from it is to try and get my chores done. The weather has been really nice so it has actually be good to work outside. The best thing that came out of the garden today was my first sweet Spanish onions. For dinner I actually made sausage dogs with all the onions and peppers we could handle … and I'm paying for it. That's what I'm doing sitting up here at the kitchen table with the solar lamp while Rand and Austin are asleep.

Trying to keep my mind off of the terrible indigestion I gave myself from pigging out I've been making a list of what I have in the garden and what I can expect out of the orchard. Last month I planted bush beans, pole beans, lima beans, cantaloupes, carrots, collard greens, sweet corn, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, lettuce, romaine, kohlrabi, mustard greens, okra, green onions, English peas, black eyed peas, peppers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, radish, summer squash, winter squash, tomatoes, turnips, and watermelon. I planted more of the same for successive harvests. The greens I harvest daily and the peppers are really coming in now too … bell to sweet to hot, seems you can never have too many peppers.

I planted too much cabbage. The heads this season are huge and if I have to smell cooking cabbage one more time I think I'm gonna hurl. I've made as much sauerkraut and I can stand to make. I've dried it until it looks like confetti. I've canned a ton of slaw. I've shredded the stuff and tried to hide it in some of the casseroles I've made. I'm just plain tired of looking at cabbage. I know I'm being ungrateful but this Sunday for the dinner on the grounds I'm making a huge bowl of cole slaw to try and "bless" some other folks with the bounty God's dumped on us.

The mayhaws will be coming in soon and I can't wait. The next sorghum crop needs to be planted before the end of the month and I hope to get my gladiolus bulbs in the ground in the next day or so too. Whoops, Rand is looking for me so looks like it is off to bed whether I can stand it or not. If I don't go, he'll want to sit with me and I won't do that to him.

 **April 21st** – Today was baking day and I've decided to write down the whole process for posterity … or at least for the baby's memory book. First off, you have to have the wheat to grind. I'm still using some that was in Rand's feed barrels. We're using the older stuff before we start using the grain that we grew ourselves. Rand calls it FIFO … first in, first out.

According to one of Momma's books on the subject of baking, the whole wheat kernel or berry is made up of distinct parts, all of which contribute to the high quality nutritional value of the wheat. The wheat has high amounts of vitamins A, E and B. Wheat berries found in the tombs of the pharaohs in Egypt and examined still contained the full range of 26 vitamins and minerals, over 2000 years after it had been harvested; you have to admit that is something amazing. The outside of the kernel is called the **bran**. Bran is good for the fiber that the body needs as well as helping to regulate cholesterol. It helps to detoxify the body which is an important function in our society where toxins assault us from every angle. The **wheat germ** is the part of the kernel that sprouts. It holds the life of the wheat, the ability to produce plants like itself. It has the highest density of vitamins B and E in the wheat. This is where wheat germ oil is found, a healthy oil that helps the body absorb vitamins that are not water soluble. Finally, the **endosperm** is the part of the wheat berry that holds the starch. This is the only part left in white flour. It is only the starch which breaks down into sugar in the body, and is meant as a food source for the plant as it grows, before the leaves come out and photosynthesis begins.

I know I need to teach Austin this stuff too and I keep making notes but by the time I've thought about something and bring it up Austin will generally say, "I know, Rand told me." I'm not sure if that makes me feel useless or not. I'm glad that Rand is teaching Austin but, I thought I was supposed to have a hand in it someplace too.

Anyway, about making bread from scratch, now that I've got the structure of the wheat out of the way the next part of the equation is the grinder. There used to be all sorts of grinders on the market. Looking at Momma's books and at the old magazines in Daddy's files makes me think that some folks sure had it easy. I have a couple of different grinders but mostly I have to use the hand powered ones though Rand has said that when he gets more deep cycle batteries he is going to set the kitchen up so that I can use some of the old "convenience appliances" like the blender, food processor, and electric grinder on a regular basis.

The first hand grinder I have is for small batches. It bolts onto the table, you feed the grain into the hopper, and then you turn the crank handle and the flour is spit out into a bowl I have strategically placed below the grinding area. I like this grinder when I'm only doing a small amount of flour or when I want cracked wheat instead of flour or I'm making flour or meal out of harder grains like corn or legumes.

The other grinder I have is a Country Living Grain Mill. This is the grinder I use when I need to make larger batches of flour. The wheel on this mill is really big and Rand has set it up so that a belt can be placed on the large wheel and run to a bicycle wheel and peddling the bicycle powers the grinder. Now that my backside is too wide for the seat, Austin has to help first thing on Baking Day to make sure I have enough flour for everything I plan to do on those days.

First thing you want to do is keep your grain on the cool side as it is ground, that's why I do mine first thing in the morning. If the grain gets too warm, or the resulting flour, it kind of develops this rancid odor and the flour has an off taste that can't be baked out. It is also a good habit to never grind any more grain than what you need in a single day. I've goofed, or gotten distracted doing other things, so sometimes I have to bag it and put it in the cooler but not too many people have that advantage so stick with just making what you need each day.

According to one of Momma's books, the first loaves of bread were made of loosely ground grains mixed with water and then flattened out and dried in the sun. I can't really see trying to pass that off at the dinner table these days. But you don't just treat fresh ground whole wheat flour the way you would the bleached white stuff that you used to get at the grocery store either. It is a different texture and has the whole grain in it, not just the starchy part.

This is how I make one of my favorite loaves of whole wheat bread. You start with one and a half cups of water. The water should be lukewarm (body temperature) to help dissolve one quarter cup of honey and support the growth of the packet of dry yeast. Honey is for flavor and also food for the yeast. Adding a quarter cup of vegetable oil makes for a cake-like texture and helps the bread stay moist. And the two tablespoons of salt brings out the taste of all the ingredients.

Combine the ingredients, including three and one-half cups of whole wheat flour, one at a time, in a large bowl – starting with the liquids and ending with the flour one cup at a time and keeping a half cup aside until the dough is ready to knead on the table top.

Blend everything with a spoon and/or your hands until it begins to form a lump. Then lightly dust the table top with some of the remaining flour, turn the mound out of the bowl, and let it rest for 10 minutes. According to the notes in the margin of Momma's recipe book this is so the flour can more fully absorb the water.

Next, dust your hands with a little of the extra flour and begin kneading as follows: (1) gently push the dough away from you so that it flattens out, (2) give it a quarter turn and (3) fold it in half toward you. Think of it as push, turn, and fold. Repeat the process as many as 100 times, dusting your hands and the table to prevent the dough from sticking. The key here is to make sure the dough stays moist and soft – so add just enough flour during the kneading to keep the dough from becoming stiff and dry. When the kneading is done, the dough will be soft and tender like the lobe of your ear which sounds stupid but is really true if you've ever stopped to compare the two..

Pour a little oil into the mixing bowl, and roll the kneaded dough inside the bowl so that it is coated with the oil. Cover the bowl with a dishcloth and let it double in size in a corner of the kitchen where there are no drafts. After about an hour, punch it down in the bowl to release the bubbles made by the yeast. Turn it back onto the table top and knead it another 25 to 50 times. Shape the dough into a ball, and press it into a greased bread pan (8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches). Cover it with a cloth, and let it rise until it's about a half inch over the brim of the pan. Bake it at 350 degrees F for 45 to 60 minutes. To know if it is done, remove it from the pan and tap the bottom. A clear hollow sound means it's fully baked. Set it on a wire rack and let it cool. It is actually still baking until it reaches room temperature. But in this case, temptation has its rewards and it is a true temptation for me not to sit down and eat slice after slice with fresh butter or jam.

 **April 22** **nd** – No swap meet this week. Feels like forever since I've been to one. I'll be going to the next one, or at least I plan to. Need to be a little more careful about putting the cart before the horse. You never know what kind of curve ball life is going to throw at you.

I've been a little sad today. We didn't know one of the does was pregnant. She always looked all poked out on the sides like she ate better than good. When Rand and Austin went to feed the animals Austin came in afterwards looking like he'd been crying and walked straight to his room without a word. I looked at Rand who'd come in behind him looking grim.

"That doe, the one with the really soft ears that Austin has made a bet of a pet out of, she gave birth to twins and one of them didn't make it."

"I didn't know she was …"

"I didn't either. I think the doe is going to be all right. For all she is so dainty she's a touch one. But I'm not sure about the remaining kid. It's a doelet and a lot smaller than she should be. The bucklet that died was twice her size."

With no vet we have to rely on books and experience when it comes to the animals but sometimes that isn't enough. You can't always save them. Heck, sometimes you don't even know they are sick until it is too late. The other day one of my original hens was just pecked to death by the other chickens. I still don't know why. Rand said she could have been sick but there wasn't any obvious sign of it. She was a good layer too so it is really weird.

Tonight before we locked up the house Austin was in a better mood when Rand said the doelet is doing better but her size makes him wonder if he should count her out of the future breeding pool in case she has some kind of genetic damage. She is a sweet looking little thing but its hard to keep animals only as pets and Austin knows that. I see him resisting the urge to get attached … because if she isn't a breeder she is food. As harsh as that is, it is only a reflection of the world we live in.

 **April 23** **rd** – " _It only takes a spark to get a fire going,_

 _The soon all those around can warm up to its glowing."_

Those are the first two lines of an old church camp song I remember my Mom singing to me when I was little. Could have been the song those cultist were singing for all I know as they sat around their campfire in the woods. Or maybe it was Kum-ba-yah or who knows what. Probably doesn't matter but their carelessness led to the agonizing deaths of three-quarters of their members not to mention the deaths of two families of migrants holed up at an abandoned farm in O'Brien.

Ken – pastor, doctor, counselor, arbitrator, mediator, news correspondent. Events that happen in the community get relayed to the rest of us, sometimes via the pulpit, and this time with a reminder that there isn't a VFD any longer. We can save ourselves best by taking simple precautions to prevent catastrophes like fires. The sermon went along with his admonitions coming from Proverbs 9.

The slaw was a big hit. So were the hush puppies, fish, and crawdaddies that were cooked up fresh right there thanks to one of our new families. The girl that died in childbirth not too long ago was their daughter in law.

Rand thinks I'm imagining things but I swear I'm not. And I think that Uncle George is guiding things along. Laurabeth was sitting on a blanket in the shade with Stevie. Men kept coming over to say hello … women too but mostly unattached men from my observations. I didn't think anything of it at first, the Crenshaws are a popular family and well liked and people are happy to see Laurabeth getting better. She is most definitely better but she's been touched for life. There are lines at the corner of her eyes ten years before there should have been, her grief maturing her physically as well as emotionally. Well, it looked like Ron Harbinger could only stand to stay apart from this for so long. He started hovering around Laurabeth. Rand said he was just being protective because of Stevie but to me it looked like more than that.

Then Ron was looking at Laurabeth and he gets this funny look on his face and then it went blank. He backed up two steps … right into Uncle George who was grinning like he had a secret. Uncle George clapped him on the should and suggested that both Laurabeth and Stevie could use a walk. Ron's mouth opens and closes a couple of times but Uncle George just keeps that smile on his face and tells Ron to go on and that some of the daffodils were still blooming in the old park nature trail and that Laurabeth was fond of them. Eventually Ron gave in but you could see he was a bit reluctant … not reluctant because he didn't want to but reluctant 'cause he was a little scared maybe.

I'm pretty sure that Laurabeth is oblivious to it. I'm not sure what I think. For one thing it's none of my doggone business but on the other hand I feel I've got a bond with Laurabeth that wasn't there before. I guess it is just creeping me out a little bit to see her life being manipulated from the sidelines like that. I know I wouldn't like it being done to me but Laurabeth is a different person. Do I say something or do I keep my nose out of it?

I've decided that I'm going to keep my nose out of it … at least temporarily. Maybe I'll ask Ron, but from the look on his face he might bolt if I do say something. I could ask Uncle George but he could tell me to mind my own business. I could say something to Missy but then she might say something thoughtless … though she isn't as bad about that as she pretends to be. I don't know, guess I'll just have to wait and see how things turn out.

When we got home we were full as a family of ticks and Rand said not to bother cooking which was a nice break for me. We try and keep work light on Sundays but that doesn't mean all we do is rest. The animals still have to be tended to, so does the garden, and sometimes I have a little preserving or sewing to do … but by and large we didn't have any problems today.

I made popped wheat today and I can't say that it is something that I would want to eat every day but it is fun for a change of pace. I had cooked up some wheat this morning but it didn't all get eaten for breakfast so tonight I took the cooked wheat and "puffed" it in hot oil. The oil needs to be about 375 degrees F and you fry the cooked wheat for about two minutes before removing and draining really well. A lot of people salt them but I put a little cinnamon and sugar on mine and it was really good.

Austin and Rand were a little hungrier than they had thought they were going to be so I fixed them a garden salad and gave them a slice of bread, butter, and jam and that filled their empty spots. And now I'm just about all done in so I'm going to bed and I hope I get to sleep through the night this time. I swear seems like no matter what I do I have to get up a time or two in the night and go to the bathroom. Luckily we don't have an outhouse or this would be no fun at all.

 **April 24** **th** – Started harvesting the mayhaws today. You do not want to eat those things raw … ew, shiver, gak, spit. But the mayhaw jelly I made today was incredible. Crazy how something so icky turned into something so delicious I had to hide the jelly jars behind the lima beans in the pantry to keep Rand and Austin out of them.

Mayhaws aren't very big, maybe half an inch to an inch in diameter. According to Momma's book on the subject they are a type of Hawthorne native to the US. I had to throw a bird net over the tree because as soon as the birds saw what I was doing they came flying in. Woofer and Fraidy (now able to leave her kittens a little more) helped with some of the blackbirds but the smaller birds escaped them. But with birds in the garden I have noticed I haven't had as many problems with locusts as some of the neighbors are reporting. The geese get their fair share of the insects as well and I've watched them drive off birds they think are invading their turf.

I wound up having to call Austin to help get the nets on the trees. I probably lost a couple of pounds to the birds but I still managed to pick about fifteen pounds from the trees and there is a lot of fruit still ripening. For the mayhaw jelly I took three pounds of washed berries and added four cups of water and brought it to a boil and then covered and simmered for about ten minutes. Then I ran the resulting water and pulp through cheese cloth to collect the juice. I added the pectin to that juice and brought it to a full rolling boil and then added five and a half cups of sugar and continued stirring until it returned to a hard boil again. At that point I set the timer and cooked, stirring constantly, for another full minute and then took it off of the heat source. I had foam on only one of my batches so I skimmed it off and then bottled it and ran it in the boiling water canner. The jelly sure was pretty with the sun shining through it.

 **April 25** **th** – Momma O and Mrs. Withrow came by today visiting. They caught me taking a cat nap in the rocking chair on the porch. I was pretty embarrassed but at least I could tell them it was because I'd planted several more rows of dried beans in my bean gardens. They were in Momma O's buggy but they were driven by that boy that lives with Mrs. Withrow. I set out cookies and cool apple juice in dishes that I keep for company and the boy wouldn't touch the plates. When I told him he could have his on a napkin if he'd rather he finally relaxed and sat on the porch steps just as happy as a lark. He was so enthralled watching a ladybug that Mrs. W had to remind him to eat.

Mostly they seem to have come by just to exchange gossip but I think they were also pumping me for information on when Rand is going to have the incline machine finished and hooked up to the grinder. I told them that Rand said he wants to have everything read for ust to take to the next swap meet. I hope I didn't speak out of turn because I have a feeling that the news is going to be all over the tri-county area within a few days.

 **April 26** **th** – Rand laughed at me last night when I told him about telling Mrs. W and Momma O about the incline and grinder. He said not to worry, that all I had done was save him some work on the advertising end of things. I really need to watch that gossiping habit I've fallen into. I know I don't like people talking about me behind my back, whether for good or ill, and I'm turning into a hypocrite by doing it to other people. That's really not nice. It's a fine line between getting news and gossiping like an old hen and I need to remember what the difference is before I get myself in trouble.

 **April 27** **th** – Planted more beans again today. I think Rand is humoring me about the beans. I think they'll come in handy and I know he likes when I thicken gravy using bean flour instead of plain flour. As a matter of fact I made some more bean flour today by taking some of the dried beans I have that are getting really hard and grinding them up into a fine powder.

Now I could use a pressure cooker to cook really old dried beans and they are just about as good as fresh but at the same time it isn't always worth my while to do that. I've been supplying some beans to Ram to take and trade on his infernal trading route and he's never made it very far before they are all gone. If Rand is going to be an "investor" in that blasted Company of Rogues that Ram has going the least I can do is support him. He's put up with enough of my crazy ideas. Missy just reminded me to keep some of my more unusual heirloom varieties for seeds so that I can use them at the Trade Shack.

Today was supposed to be cleaning day but I was too busy getting ready for a whole passle of people that will be coming tomorrow. Rand had two new fields opened up and he is planting them all in sorghum. Mr. Coffey is also helping us to build our own sorghum mill. I wondered why he'd want to give away something that he could corner the market on and Rand told me it wasn't like that at all.

"Babe, Mr. Coffey knows he isn't getting any younger and to be honest he isn't sure if his grandson is going to keep the farm up after he goes. He's not a farmer, he's a contraption builder and that is what he is most talented at. He knows that we value his experience and wisdom. He also knows that we want to replicate what he knows, not to run him over now that he is slowing down, but as a way to imitate the best parts of his knowledge and perfect them before he's not around to be a mentor anymore."

"Uh, in other words he's flattered that we want him to teach us?"

Rand laughed and said, "Yeah, basically."

You know, sometimes I wonder where all my education went. I could stand up and talk rings around some of my opponents in debate but these days I'm just happy to be able to string some words together that make sense and get my point across. Every once in a while I'll catch myself writing in my journal the way I used to talk but it "sounds" funny when I read it back to myself.

I worry about what I might be teaching Austin who is more comfortable saying "hither, thither, and yonder" than "here, there, and over there." Actually, you know who I sound like? My mother! I just realized … oh my goodness. I haven't forgotten her voice! I haven't! I can always hear Daddy's voice … always … in all the rules and stuff that I have I can hear him saying them like he is standing beside me but I was losing the memory of Momma's voice only … only … only I didn't lose it, it was here all the time, inside me.

 **April 28** **th** – Company all day long, as a matter of fact still have the boys asleep on the floor in Austin's room. Woofer is right in the middle and it is like a puppy fest in there. Uncle George was fine with them staying over and then coming to the swap meet with us in the morning.

I'm so tired I almost can't see straight and I won't be up much longer. Just waiting for the last pot to finish soaking so that I can finish washing it and go to bed. Cooked three meals for over a dozen men and boys and I was the only female there though the boys did help me get the cooked food to the table.

But I won't complain, the sorghum is all planted – two five-acre plots of it – and now we just have to trust in God for the rest of it. Even doubling our acres planted in sorghum we still have plenty of grain left. We also have a lot of sorghum molasses left so I decided to make pecan pies for dessert to use up some of the pecans from last season that won't last much longer.

First you pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Roughly chop the pecans - you don't want them crushed – until you have about a cup and a half of nut meats. Combine one-third of a cup of brown sugar and three eggs in a large mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add one tablespoon of cornstarch and one-quarter teaspoon of salt. Melt four tablespoons of butter and stir it in to the sugar-eggs-cornstarch mess. Add the nuts and three-quarter cup of sorghum and mix one last time. Pour everything into a prepared pie crust and tilt the dish around to make sure it's evenly distributed. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the center is firmed up bit still a bit jiggly. (Yes, that's the official cooking term: "jiggly".) Then let the pie sit for 15 minutes before cutting.

I made four pies and I swear the men could have eat three times that many. I almost didn't have to wash the plates. I guess that means that liked it.

 **April 29** **th** – We had to be up so early today to move the incline and grinder to a special spot that Mr. Henderson had set aside for us at the field. And boy, we were so busy I almost didn't get a chance to look around. Rand and the boys were so busy running the equipment that I had to stay to help with the paper work of taking in so much weight and returning so much.

The incline is sort of like a treadmill and we use the donkey's to run it. No matter what reinforcing Rand has tried the antique equipment just isn't up to Bud and Lou's weight and none of the horses want to have anything to do with the clackety old thing. The little donkeys though just plod along and are happy to get their carrot when they do a job for so long.

The incline treadmill turns the shaft that rotates the gears that in turn run the grinding wheels. Mr. Coffey helped Rand to set some different wheels up – wheat or rye, corn, and then an adjustable one. I'm not sure how the millers did it in times past but all Rand is asking as a "toll" is for every bushel of wheat that someone wants ground we get to keep five pounds of the pre-ground grain.

The scales we used were recalibrated every hour while everyone watched but there was still some grumbling. Guess people thought they were going to get something for nothing. But most people were OK with it and said they'd been worried about Rand asking for a much higher toll than what he is.

Rand says one of the reasons why he is diversifying our income sources like he is is so that he doesn't have to charge so high a price on any single item or service. I think he is underselling himself but he says that you have to have a balance. I guess that is true. I feel funny sometimes when I know how much Missy is getting for the mixes and stuff that I made for her.

Today I brought her cake mixes … spice cake, carrot cake, apple coffee cake, and chocolate cake. The chocolate cake got bid up ridiculously and even Missy felt bad and said that she'd only take so much and that if others really were interested they could put their names down on a waiting list. I've got almost two dozen orders for chocolate cake mixes for the next swap meet. Good thing I'm not much of a chocoholic and don't mind parting with some of the cocoa in those giant tubs of the stuff I have.

It took Rand most of the day to get everything ground that people wanted ground. We came home with a lot more than I expected we would. But finally Rand decided to shut up shop about two hours before the swap meet was over and said that if enough people could get together on a given day, and if he could schedule it out far enough in advance, he'd pull the milling equipment to a central location and work things out.

Mr. Henderson told Rand, rather than hauling the milling equipment all over the place, if he wanted to set up in the empty lot across from the ranch he'd provide security … for shares of course. I like Mr. Henderson but I'm under no illusion that he isn't out to make his ranch as successful as possible.

Saw Cassie today, she seemed … something. I don't know if it is sad or just what. When I mentioned it to Rand he said that Mitch was "walking out" with a young woman he'd dated in highschool for a while.

"Uh oh. Is there going to be trouble?"

"No, don't think so. Mr. Henderson seems happy with the changes in Cassie … she's grown up the last couple of months I guess … but he is under no illusion that she'd be easy to get along with in marriage. And he likes Mitch enough that he wants to see him happy. He would have liked to tie things up neat and tidy with Mitch and Cassie making it a go of it together but he's realist enough to know you can't dictate stuff like that just because that is how you want it to turn out."

I suppose that is true. Seems like all of the fairy tales are getting kind of thin. Laurabeth's Prince Charming dying in battle leaving her childless and alone. Cassie and Mitch going their separate ways. Villains not renouncing their evil ways and reforming and learning to live happily ever after like the rest of us. Lots of other things like that seem to be happening recently. Doggone depressing if you think about it.

 **April 30** **th** – Heard that there was another large raid by the pirates or whoever is causing these problems. Another migrant family was completely wiped out except for a little boy. Bradley's aunt and uncle have taken him in temporarily.

Rand is on me about disappearing into the woods where he can't find me. I told him I left a note on the kitchen counter and that it wasn't my fault he sat his hat on top of it and didn't see it and then got worried and cantankerous. We both wound up laughing in the end because it was silly but at the same time I know he is serious about me being more careful and not going off on my own. I suppose he as a point. Last thing I need to do is get out in the woods and turn an ankle or something. As big a round as I am now no telling what would happen.


	93. Chapter 92

Chapter 92

 **May 1** **st** – "The water brings up what is in the well." Words of wisdom courtesy of Momma O yesterday at church. I think what she meant was that people act the way they are on the inside. Bad people act bad because they are bad. Good people act good because they are good or because they are trying with what goodness they have in them to immulate someone else that is even better. When a bad person tries to act good, really tries, it is because there is still some good in them even if it has been drowned out by all the bad stuff they've done.

On the other hand it doesn't mean that you can't let the mud settle and bring up good water. Oh geez, now I'm starting to sound like her. Guess you'd call it philosophy, southern-style. There are worse things I can do than sound like Momma O. I'm really afraid that maybe she might not be around too much longer.

When I was in the hospital in the children's wing for so long after the accident I was pretty self-involved; but even then there were things I couldn't fail to see and learn. For instance, a lot of the kids on the long term ward were chronically ill or even terminally ill. I don't know if it was being a kid or what but you could start to tell when one of the kids on the ward was reaching the end. It went beyond being frail, we were all frail. Their skin would get this funny color and go all thin and stretched looking. The older kids would sometimes get mad, like they knew they were going to miss all of the stuff that their parents and their doctors had been promising them that the next treatment would help them to live til. The younger kids would sometimes get real anxious and worried about their parents and what would happen to the people they would leave behind; they were more worried about them than they were about dying.

Momma O seems to be getting the same way. I got a little cabin fever and finally convinced Rand to let me take the pony cart and go over to see her. Mrs. Withrow and some of the other Ladies' Auxiliary was there having tea. Every once in a while she'd say something like, "I just hate to go and leave DeLois all of this work." Another time she said, "Kiri, I'm setting you back some of the heirloom flower seeds. You can't forget to stop and smell the blooms God sends. Now don't you forget. I've got it written down just in case."

I didn't know quite how to take it any more than I knew how to react to the kids when they would get that way. I'm not afraid of death but I've lost so much – OK, we have all lost so much – that the idea of losing one of the first people to offer me any acceptance around here just twists something deep inside me. I know better than lots of people how inevitable and unexpected death can be and that it is no respecter of age or circumstances. It chokes me up even to try and write about losing her. She's been like a … I don't know exactly how to say it. Not grandmother, not aunt, not mother, not sister, friend yes but more than that, mentor yes but still even more. Maybe all those things and a few more that don't exactly have a name … an elder woman that offered me comfort, guidance, and most of all acceptance when I had had none of those things in so long.

 **May 2** **nd** – I was planting my last row of black eyed peas when we got the word. At first I thought it was Momma O at the look of seriousness on Cassie's face.

"Kiri, when's the last time you had an MMR?" she asked.

"A what? You mean the vaccination?" I asked, confused at first as to what she meant.

"Yeah. When's the last time you had an MMR? Can you remember?"

"I had to have one at the beginning of highschool. Why?"

"Think. How long ago was that?"

"During my freshman year … maybe three or four years ago, I can't remember exactly. I …"

"Are you positive?"

"Well yeah. I had to have a whole slew of boosters because they couldn't find my shot records from the hospital and Aunt Wilma freaked out and took me to the County Health Center and they shot me up so full of those things that I was sick for two days with a fever and my arms felt like they were going to fall off. Hey, what's going on?" I asked at her sudden relief.

"One of our ranch hand's little boys broke out in spots during the night. He was at church on Sunday. Pastor Ken says that it is measles. A couple of other kids at the ranch are running fevers too and so are some of the people my age. I had a booster for college but not everyone went to a college that required it or their booster is out of date. Poppy is really worried and he's quarantining anyone that can't prove they had a booster in the last five. That 's almost everyone. Poppy had measles had measles as a kid and his mom was pregnant at the time. He's youngest brother was born deaf because his mom caught the measles at the same time."

Of all the things that could go wrong with this baby, that is something I never even thought about. Cassie went on, "Ken is going to be by later. You better keep Austin close until you know for sure. And ask Rand. I can't remember which one of our old crowd was vaccinated and which wasn't."

"Has word gone out to the Crenshaws?" I asked thinking of them all over that way.

"If it hasn't gotten there yet I'm sure the news is on the way. Hoss said he was going over to his family's place and he has to go right by the Trade Shack and was going to post a notice there."

I didn't mean to but I was in the middle of cooking supper when Rand came home with the thresher. I ran outside and started bawling my head off like a lunatic. I guess it had scared me more than I wanted to admit. I finally calmed down and just saved the cornbread. The only bright spot is that Austin was able to tell us for sure that he was vaccinated.

"I know you think I'm just a little kid and don't know for sure but I do. It was a big fight between my mom and dad. Well, it wasn't really my dad so much as the Judge. See, Mom rubbed the judge the wrong way – she could do that to people – shouting about power to the people and Mother Gaia and stuff. The judge threatened to throw her in jail for contempt and then Mom started saying things like … well, not nice things about how the government was trying to poison us and stuff. Grandpa said that made the judge suspicious and he asked for all my medical records and when he found out I hadn't been vaccinated he gave a court order forcing Mom to take me to the doctor or lose her parental rights and junk. So I got all my shots. Look, I even have a scar where one of them got flamed and infected."

Showing us a small round circle on his left bicep Rand asked, "You mean enflamed Buddy?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess. Flamed, enflamed, it swelled up real big. Mom pitched a real fit and screamed she was going to sue the judge. It was an awful mess," and Austin shrugged as only a kid knows how like that explained everything else that needed saying. I should know that shrug. It wasn't too long ago that I used it fairly regularly as my main method of communication when any subject was getting uncomfortable. Why do I suddenly feel like somebody's grandma? Maybe because I have more to worry about.

Ken did come by and the first thing out of his mouth was, "I don't want you to worry." Like I'm going to be able to abide by that particular rule. I know that I'm not supposed to worry. Ken had even preached on it a couple of months back, how it was a sin and all that. Well if I won't call it worry then, I've just got a major concern over several items currently going on in my life. There, how's that for rationalization?

 **May 3** **rd** – More cases of measles. Laurabeth won't let anyone near baby Stevie except for Ron. Alicia is running scared because she can't remember whether she was vaccinated or not, probably not, Tommy neither. She thinks her parents took the religious exemption. Uncle George came around to check on us and he said they've set it up so that no one can get up to the house and even the Trade Shack is shutting down for a few days to try and break any potential chain of infection. Scary times we live in.

 **May 4** **th** – No new cases of measles have been reported but Ken said until a week has passed with no new cases no one should let their guard down. It has me thinking, what happens to all the kids who never had vaccinations or to the babies being born now? What happens when someone gets careless or is exposed through no fault of their own? How many of us will have to pay for someone else's mistake?

I looked in the old family Bible, the one that Momma inherited when her folks died. My grandmother lost two baby sisters to diphtheria. I knew that Daddy lost a brother he never knew to measles. Lots of kids died before they should have just a couple of generations back. Polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, lock jaw that goes by the fancy name of tetanus … there are already cases of yellow fever along the Gulf Coast and Ken says we've been lucky not to have seen it yet along the river here.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm ever going to be able to protect this baby from the bad stuff that can happen. Isn't that a mother's job? To protect her baby? But what if I do something stupid and thoughtless and my baby has to suffer the consequences?

Rand and I talked about it some after dinner. He's concerned but there is only so much he can do. He's trying to keep us fed and clothed right now and give us a little "money in the bank" in case things get tough this summer. He seems to act like he only has ten weeks until the world could be coming to an end again. I've seen this calendar he's made up. Seriously. I don't have the heart to tell him that Ken thinks I might be further along because I'm getting so big so quickly. But I think that Ken has said some things to Rand that they aren't letting me in on. Drives me batty.

Coincidentally ten weeks is how much time I'm "supposed" to have until the baby is born. According to The Book … that's how Rand talks about it like it is in caps … the baby weighs about three pounds. The little spud has eyelashes and eyebrows and is supposed to be able to recognize light and dark and even track light it sees outside its momma's belly. But it can't come out and play yet.

That doesn't mean the baby can't freak me the heck out though because I swear I thought I was going to have the little tadpole this morning. That's why Ken came by today. Turns out it was fake labor, these things called Braxton-Hicks. They are kind of like your body is practicing for labor but isn't really in labor. Ken said I would know when it was real labor because it would hurt. Great. Just what I wanted to hear.

Now I'm off to bed and I hope that I actually get to sleep through the night. Seems like I'm getting up at least once or twice to go to the bathroom now. And last night I even had to wake Rand up to help me get out of bed 'cause I had to go so bad. Talk about embarrassing. I'm not sure he was awake enough to do much good but give me a little push but it was enough that both of us giggled a little after dinner when I bumped my belly on the table trying to stand up. Austin wanted to know what the joke was. Wish I could have explained it but I'm not sure I understand what was so funny either.

 **May 5** **th** – Gosh I've been so moody lately. I cry for no reason or turn around and feel mad for no reason. I told Rand that he might as well send me to live with the chickens at this rate, at least he'd get more sleep. Then he made me cry buckets by tell me he wouldn't have me any other way and that as soon as the baby was born I'd feel more like my old self.

I hope not too much like my old self; I want to be better than that. I need to be better than that so that I can be as good a Momma as my Momma was.

For now though I'm just feeling scared. So much death around. Ken was right to have us wait on thinking we'd gotten lucky. The measles hit the migrant camp. It isn't the little kids that are dying though; it is the college age people. That would be people Rand's age or thereabouts. I'm glad Rand had his booster for college but a lot of his friends that didn't go to college aren't sure whether they are still protected or not.

Planted some more okra today but just about passed out from the heat. I can't get away from it, it follows me around behind me like my belly is in front of me. Rand came in from threshing and found me threatening to shave myself ball headed and run around without a stitch on.

He said, "I'd like to see that … the second part, not the first. I'll go to the Trade Shack and see if they have …"

"No, don't do that. It's too late and too hot to do the mules like that for something stupid like this. I just need to lay down for a little while. Can you and Austin eat leftover beans and cornbread? I'll make a salad to go with it but the idea of heating up the stove again …"

"We're fine. If we want a salad we know how to fix it. You go lay down in the hammock."

"I'll lay down but not in the hammock. Last time I got in that thing I nearly didn't get out. And besides the bugs will be out soon. Rand I'm sorry that I'm so slow. I've still got weeks to go and I'm not being much help at all."

"Do you hear me complaining?" he laughed. "I might actually finally be able to catch up with you for a change."

So I did lay down and I actually slept for a little while. Rand and Austin are taking a late shower to try and cool down themselves and then we are all going to go to bed. It just doesn't make any sense to sit around miserable when we are this hot and tired.

 **May 6** **th** – Hot, hot, hot. I don't remember it being this bad last year. Filled the tub with cold water and just wallowed in it like an old pig. I swear, my belly works as well as a life preserver; could barely stay down in the water 'cause I kept popping up. And no, I don't find it funny at all, especially when I'm trying to climb out without help. Grrr.

 **May 7** **th** – Church today but Rand didn't want me to go. He told me to stay in bed for as long as I wanted. I got up after they left anyway but I walked around the house in as few clothes as I could handle. No one was around to see my scars and stretch marks so I thought I'd take advantage of the peace.

When the guys came home for lunch I had a cold garden salad ready for lunch. I also had some cornbread and cold buttermilk ready. Dinner was empanadas that Ram had sent over after hearing how much the heat was getting to me.

Turns out I'm not the only one suffering with the heat and that it isn't my imagination that it is hotter than it was last year. As a matter of fact it is hotter than it has been in several years. People's gardens are suffering and it is only the beginning of May. There was a special prayer for rain 'cause if this keeps up we are going to be in a lot of trouble before too much longer.

 **May 9** **th** – Death, death, death. It seems to follow me where ever I go. You'd think after everything I'd expect and accept it more. But death is the one thing guaranteed to make me feel like fighting no matter what. Rand practically ordered me to bed yesterday. It made me so mad on top of everything else but I didn't have to do anything because Missy frogged him in the arm really hard for me and told him to stop being such a pig.

She all but duck walked me into the bedroom, calmed me down and I somehow wound up lying down and resting when I hadn't meant to. I was beginning to drift off when I heard Missy quietly leave the room.

"Ow!" Rand yelled. "Stop hitting me Missy! Once was enough already."

"Shhh! You deserve it you idiot. You'd think you would be smarter by now," she hissed back at him.

"Huh?" I heard him ask, more quietly than before.

"How long have you and Kiri been together? You really think she's going to take the news about Tommy calmly? We're all a little nuts over it but you know how Kiri is about the boys. Look at Austin and Mick out there. Didn't you see her? The first thing she did was step between them and that guy that was with Ram and that was before she'd heard the news. I've seen her do it before and she doesn't even realize she's doing it. Mick told me one time that every once in a while she'll call him 'Michael.' "

"I … I guess I didn't think. All I saw was that she was getting … You know I worry about her. She can just get so … so …"

"Rand, she's been through a lot in her life. And admit it, she's a lot more capable than you want to give her credit for being. Not to mention that you're just like Dad … over protective."

"It's not that. I love that she is who and what she is. But you don't know some of the stuff … some days she seems so fragile. And with this baby she just seems … I'm worried Missy."

"You mean you're scared. Don't you think Bill was scared before I had the baby … and a few times since. Don't you think that Dad has gone slightly demented each time one of us get preggars? And don't you think we all understand how what happened to Laurabeth could happen to any of us? Trust me Cuz, we've all been dealing with the boogey men that could right along beside you."

Rand gave a deep sigh, "I know. I … I don't know what I would do if anything happened to her. And it's not just because I couldn't raise a baby by myself either. I'm scared what is going to happen to her if … if something happens to the baby. She hasn't said much but … Missy, what if something happens to the baby and she gets so angry she wants to leave me? You saw how Laurabeth was. You're right, Kiri has already fought some battles she never should have had to. What happens …"

I got the sense that Missy had reached out to Rand in some way. "You aren't going to like hearing this Rand anymore than I like saying it. Sometimes there isn't a thing you can do about the "what if's" and you just have to deal with the "what are's."

"Easy for you to say," Rand grumbled.

"No. No it really isn't Rand. I don't like admitting it but I've had to grow up in ways that maybe I never would have if I hadn't met Bill and if the world hadn't fallen apart. I would have been my mom all over again and that would have been a disaster. My step mom wasn't much better either. She wanted Dad to be like he was and yet she never really appreciated it. Kiri … Kiri's good for you. She'll stand up to you without pouting or pulling that passive aggressive stuff that Julia used to. At the same time, she gives into you enough because she wants … well genius, in case you've missed it Kiri is afraid of losing you too. Look how she was after those Russians …"

"Yeah, don't remind me. Look, you'd tell me if she said anything about … about being scared or whatever? Right? I know I can't protect her – or me – from everything, but I don't want her to build those walls of hers back up. I think that is what scares me the most, something happening and her doing what Laurabeth has done."

"Relax Cuz, Kiri has already walked that road and I think she's got sense enough to pick a different path if ever faced with something like that again. I only wish I could say the same for Dad and Alicia. They are both so tore up you'd think Dad had raised Tommy from the beginning and he's pretrified that Janet is going to go the same way even though that can't happen since she must have had ever vaccine known to man since birth. You know how Dad has always been about that stuff. Between the Vet for the cattle and the Peditrician for us kids; it would have been cheaper if Dad had just gone to medical school himself. And Alicia … she's so angry she doesn't know what to do with it all. Brendan took her out to the hay barn, shut the door and just let her beat on the bales out there to work it off. I think she's got some of it out of her system but Alicia is one of the 'still waters run deep' kind of people and it is just going to take a while."

Rand asked, "How's Mick taking it?"

"About like you'd expect. I think Dad is missing it. Bill tried to talk to Mick but he's just shut himself up. But Ron … I don't know but I think Laurabeth asked Ron to say something and maybe it took because right before we came over here Mick finally sat down and cried some. I was beginning to wonder if he would."

Even as I felt myself falling asleep while they continued to talk – my body betraying me again or maybe trying to save me despite myself – I realized that Rand really was a whole lot like Uncle George, in ways I'd never really seen before. He could be over protective to the point of making me a little crazy sometimes. Maybe Julia liked that, heck even I like the idea of it, but it isn't healthy and I'm glad I've put my foot down a few times … for both our sakes. And I have a feeling that Rand has put up with a lot from me that another guy wouldn't have just like Uncle George put up with from his wife. It gave me something to think about besides poor Tommy.

When I woke up the late afternoon sun had already run to the other side of the house and the room was pretty dark. I was disoriented at first and then I remember. Oh God. Tommy. Poor Tommy.

He hadn't been feeling well but no one really remarked on it. He is … was … so pale and fair and the heat didn't do him any good either. Everyone just thought that was what it was, and it may have been at first. No spots so there wasn't anything to worry about, or so was thought. Then in the night he woke Mick up having some kind of seizure. Missy said that Ken called it a febrile seizure. Missy said his temperature went over 105 degrees F, and that was the few times they could actually get a reading because he kept having the seizures. Not even bathing him in fresh well water would bring the fever down.

There isn't really anyway to say for sure but apparently Ken said that Tommy had one of rarest of complications from measles – encephalitis. That's where your brain swells. It only happens in about 1 in 1000 cases, but it does happen. That's why measles can be so dangerous. I asked them how they had known it was measles when he didn't have spots. Bill, who had brought Missy and Mick over, said that Tommy had Koplick Spots inside his mouth. Those are little white spots that are the precursor for the red rash that breaks out on the body. I never knew any of that. It is scary how much I don't know.

Today has been about like you would expect. They buried Tommy last night. I know that seems like a rush but what choice did they have in this heat? No funeral homes, no ice houses … the alternative is pretty well unthinkable for me. I had a nightmare about that house I got the food from when I was biking up here for the first time in I don't know how long. I spent a long time in the bathroom puking when I jumped out of bed in the middle of the night.

Austin has spent a lot of time with the animals but I think he'll be OK. He keeps asking me though am I for sure that my MMR is up to date. I think he is scared for the baby now. He was talking and talking and talking about being a big brother and suddenly he won't say boo about it. I guess there is a lot of stuff we are all too afraid to talk about.

 **May 10** **th** – Travel is still restricted in our community. We've heard that measles cases are being reported up and down the river now. The military has gotten involved. They are quarantining areas and blocking roads for all the good that will do. When people want to slip out and around, they'll find a way. There is a lot of talk that maybe the pirates are doing it on purpose as there's been some rumors that some raiding parties have kidnapped infected kids and they've just turned up in places further up or down the river. Weird.

We are all sad but as unconscionable as it seems life must go on. We've got Austin and the baby to think about and the animals count on us too. Threshing has pretty much come to a halt so Rand has been around and has been working on our own fields for a change.

I made Red Onion Jam today to use up some of those big, red hamburger onions that seem to like the back corner of the garden so much. I peeled and julienned three cups of those onions and then poured over them one and a half cup of apple juice and three quarter cup of red wine vinegar. The kitchen really stunk and Rand walked in only to turn around and walk back out again and say that he and Austin would eat their lunch on the porch if I didn't mind and did I really think those fumes were good for the baby. I laughed for the first time in days. I'll take onion fumes over cabbage fumes any day of the week.

Next I added one teaspoon of dried sage, a half a teaspoon of ground black pepper, five cups of white sugar mixed with one half cup of brown sugar, and lastly a half teaspoon of margarine to draw out the sugar in the onions and help them caramelize. I put the whole mess on high heat and brought it to a full rolling boil, added my pectin, and then boiled it until the syrup jelled. Then I put it in prepared jars and processed them.

Ram showed up for lunch claiming that he'd been following the odor of the onions for the last two miles. I would have thrown something at him if I hadn't been so eager to hear how the Crenshaws were doing.

"Very sad. Very sad. But that is as it should be and now they will heal, even Alicia. She knows that Tommy is in Heaven and that she will see his sweet face again. That brings her great comfort. It will just take time … for all of us. The boy was … he was gentle, kind, and …" Ram turned away to blow his nose and none of us needed him to continue. Tommy was fragile in a bad way and I'd always worried about how he was going to grow up and be able to survive emotionally. I imagined Mick would protect him but that couldn't have lasted forever. And now … I guess I'll just have to add the why of it to the long list of questions I want the answer to when I see Him in person. Life just sucks sometimes and it's rarely fair. I don't understand why it has to be like that.

 **May 11** **th** – Potatoes. They are beautiful.

Well, not really. Actually they are brown and dirty and give me the chills when I picked them up out of the sand without gardening gloves on but even so they've got a specialness to them that goes beyond looks. Bless Ram for sending these to me.

We aren't the only ones in the area growing potatoes. Some people were smart enough to hang onto some from before the trains stopped running, but our potato field is the largest though nowhere near as large as we one day want it to be. If it wasn't for Fraidy I doubt we would have had anything. She has done her job on the moles and we've got what looks like a fox in the area that has a den of kits doing a job on the ones in the fields.

We did have a few plants on the outside rows that got hit but not too bad. If the rows had been any shorter it would have been bad but like I wrote, we had enough that losing a few to moles didn't hurt too bad. I've already got the dehydrators full of slices that are drying.

Alicia came by today to help. Brendon brought her and the baby and I think it did them good. Austin just hugged on her and hugged on her and she admitted that Mick had been doing the same.

"Kiri, part of me feels like my heart is broken permanently but … but another part of me? I have to say that … oh this is going to sound just awful."

"Alicia, compared to some of the things that have come out of my mouth I doubt you could say anything that would shock me or be that bad," I told her.

"Kiri, I'm … I'm relieved," and she burst into tears.

Well, it wasn't exactly what I expected to hear but I let her finish so that I wouldn't put my foot in my mouth.

"It is like a circle has closed. I always worried about Tommy. He was … you know Daddy … well … I was always scared that Tommy was going to turn out like our mother, unable to cope with real life. I'd see signs of it every once in a while. He was getting better than he used to be but … it's like a circle has closed. Mom then Dad and now Tommy. Like a chapter has closed. God, I'm an awful person."

"Alicia, I can't even pretend to understand. I saw some pretty wicked things from the kids in foster care and well, life pretty much bites really bad sometimes. Instead of beating yourself up over being relieved, why don't you just be happy for Tommy."

This time it was my turn to shock her. "What?"

"You know, all that stuff that Ken is always talking about. Tommy's got it, he's living it. In Heaven … no tears, no pain, no worries, all of it. Maybe it would be nice for us if he'd been destined to stay here but, for whatever reason … Look, I haven't got a whole lot of room to talk. I got really messed up after my parents and little brother died. I was awful mad for a long time. But in the end you can't change what has happened and if you really love someone you … you want what is best for them. In this case maybe staying with us wouldn't have been the best thing for Tommy. Life is hard enough these days without … you know … being able to cope with … with stuff." I shrugged too afraid of saying anything more and really messing things up.

We kept peeling potatoes, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I don't think of my little brother very much. For one thing it hurts and for another … he was just eight and it seems so long ago that he was in my life. But for a little while I gave some thought to all the good memories I had … playing pioneer in his little red wagon, putting up with my Barbies getting drafted by his GI Joes, coming home camp to find that he wouldn't sleep in his bed and had spent the week sleeping in mine, the forts we built together, the holes we had dug to China. He could be weird and obnoxious but he was my little brother. I hope that Alicia has some good memories in there that she can hang onto and not just the ones where her parents were so awful.

In addition to those that we sliced for drying we canned several loads of the smaller potatoes. Even doing it outside we both were soaked through with sweat by lunch time. We'd made sandwiches a really early lunch because we wanted to have dinner before they left for the Crenshaw place. I almost couldn't eat I was that done in.

We fixed mashed potatoes, cornbread, sliced tomatoes, greens, and for the occasion I fried up a chicken that had started coming at us claws first anytime we tried to get near the chicken coop. Rand said he'd never seen such an aggressive chicken; roosters yes, chicken no. She'd never really laid eggs either. Rand thought that maybe she was a hormonally mixed up thicken, one that thought she was a rooster. You get those every once in a while. I remember Momma saying, "A whistling woman and a crowing hen always come to some bad end." Well, I guess for a chicken being dinner rather than the guest is just about as bad an end as you can come to.

After Brendon, Alicia, and the baby left I did the few remaining dishes and then told Rand that I was taking a shower and to call me when summer was over. I noticed Austin was pretty tired at dinner and sure enough as I passed his room he was a sleep across his bed. I hadn't been in the shower a minute before I got company. There was barely room for the two of us in there at the same time but everything worked out to our mutual enjoyment.

Rand left Austin asleep and put the animals up by himself. He was a sweaty mess when he came back in and had to take another shower, this time by himself. I've thrown sheets over all the cushions. No matter where to sit or how few clothes you have on you still get sweaty. The sheets help some but not as much as I'd like and I think I'm going to have to take the covers off the sofa and chair cushions and wash them and pray they don't shrink. I might have to wash the cushions too or at least try and rinse them. Everything smells of sweat and BO these days.

Tomorrow is supposed to be Baking Day but I can barely stand the idea of getting the oven going. It might be good to keep the baking to a minimum anyway. While we've got more than a little flour – both from our own crop and from the shares people pay for Rand to run the thresher and grinder – we need to be conscious of being frugal because just because we have it today doesn't mean that we can get it tomorrow. I might do laundry instead, or at least our sheets. The pillows too. Maybe Rand will help me wash my hair.

Or maybe I'll wait until after the Swap Meet on Saturday. I've heard folks are real eager for Missy and Bill to have their stand open. The outbreak and then … then Tommy's passing … has kept the Trade Shack closed for a while and it caught the community off guard. They've become dependent on the Shack for trade goods and for news. There will be as much gossiping as bartering going on most likely.

But now it is time for me to try and get some sleep, assuming Junior will let me. I've got a watermelon that's a night owl inside me.


	94. Chapter 93

Chapter 93

 **May 12** **th** – I swear this heat is driving everyone a little crazy. The lack of rain isn't helping. Rand is getting really worried. So far we aren't having any trouble with our well but I know for a fact it is a deep one because my parents put it in. But the pond the cattle use has shrunk by about fifty percent. That has meant more pumping into their thingies they drink out of … I think this heat is frying my brain too. Or maybe it is being pregnant. I guarantee it feels like my IQ has dropped by about 75 points on some days.

Mostly it is the crops that Rand is worried about most. Even though it is a lot of work I can water my gardens by hand the same way it was done last year but the larger fields with the grain crops are another matter completely. From what we hear people spend most of the day, every day carting water and trying to keep their kitchen gardens going. The field crops are being let go to whatever their fate is. And people are hoarding their grains. Rand will bring the thresher to the next Swap Meet but there is going to armed guards because there are rumors that some folks are so desperate they plane to storm the place and take what they want.

Rand thinks he has a solution for our own fields. It won't be easy … or cheap in trade goods because he'll need some parts we don't have … but on paper it looks like a winner. He was looking in some old ag business textbooks he has and he came across a picture of a horse drawn irrigator. He thinks he has the mechanics figured out but he wants to ride over to Uncle George's to see what he has to say on it. He also hopes to hook up with a couple of the old timers at the Trade Shack at the same time and maybe one of them actually remembers using one or their father using one. I can't stop him but for some reason I get the willies lately when he and Austin leave me all alone which is really, really stupid. I've spent years all alone, so what it up with my hormones now?

The baby isn't due for nearly eight weeks yet. Wish I could shake off this weird feeling I've had lately. Even if the baby comes a month early everything should still be OK. Ken says I'm healthier than I have any right to be all things considered and that I'm a lot healthier than a lot of the pregnant females he's been seeing lately whether they be of the human flavor or the animal flavor.

This heat and drought on top of it is really starting to wear us all down. Ken has lost weight again and I wish they would figure out a way for him to have a clinic for most days of the week. Say he could have the clinic three days a week, he could make house calls two days a week, and then he'd have two days to devote to being a preacher man. Instead he tries to do both seven days a week and it is taking its toll on him. I startled him by reading him the riot act for once. And you know what the man did? He laughed. That's right he laughed at me. Honestly, what does he think he is Teflon coated and bullet proof?

You know what Ken needs? A wife. Someone that will boss him around for his own good, make sure he eats properly, and will do what it takes to nail him in place when he really shouldn't be going out and doing good deeds. I know there are a lot of women that like to make sheep's eyes at him but I'm not sure the ones I've met would know what to do with him if they caught him. I said as much to Rand and he got all loopy and romantic but I'm beginning to wonder if he didn't get up to all of that to distract me. I mean, I like being distracted by Rand but it is kind of irritating to realize how easy he can do it. I nearly forgot about some muffins that I had in the oven.

Today was baking day and I swear I nearly passed out from the heat at one point. It got so bad that I had to go lay down but there wasn't much relief there either. Rand and Austin dozed on the front porch and about 1:30 or so it was like the world just shut down for about an hour. Not even the chickens were out scratching for their dinner. The only sound to be heard was what I took to be the withering of what little grass is left in the front yard.

My sole constructive contribution to the day, beyond my regular chores, was to try out a new recipe I found in the very back of one of Momma's recipe books that Daddy brought her back from one of his TDYs to California, or at least that is what it said in the front of the book. "To Punkin from Pistol …" and a date and location. Daddy would bring Momma back things like that rather than jewelry or clothes. He knew what she liked and it was tourist stuff like coffee mugs, shot glasses, or spoons of the sights he'd seen.

I already do what I can to cut down on the use of our wheat flour but if this drought doesn't let up the ground is going to be real dry this coming fall and winter when we are supposed to plant again. Most of our big grains fields have already been harvested but the sorghum is in the ground and we can't lose it. The recipe I found uses millet and oatmeal to piece out the wheat flour and it turned out really well. Not quite like a muffin you would have gotten in the old days made out of processed, bleached, and enriched white flour but not so far off as you didn't recognize it for what it was.

First off I stirred a cup of rolled oats into one and a quarter cup of boiling water and then let that stand for twenty minutes and let it cool. Then I sifted together one and a half cups of flour, one teaspoon of baking soda and a half teaspoon of salt and set it aside. Next, in a large mixing bowl I beat a half cup of butter until it was all creamy. Then I slowly added one cup of white and one cup of brown sugar, beating it all again until smooth and creamy. To this I added two teaspoons of vanilla and two beaten eggs and beat until well blended. It looks like you have a mess but that is OK. I added the cooled oatmeal to the butter mixture and stirred it well to blend. If you thought the stuff looked funky before the oatmeal gives it a quality that I had to stop myself from thinking about as it looked all nobbledy and it set my stomach to rocking. I finally added the flour mixture at that point and had to use my heavy wooden spoon to stir it. Then I added a half cup of millet and Austin said it looked like I was stirring in chicken feed.

I spooned the batter into muffin cups that I had buttered really well, filling the wells about two-thirds full. I baked them for about 15 minutes, or until a straw inserted in the centre of the muffin came out clean. I gently ran a table knife around the edge of each muffin, lifted them out and placed them on a rack to cool. The batter only made twelve muffins but that is enough for us. I'm taking them tomorrow when we go to the Swap Meet.

 **May 13** **th** – I had fun today, even with the ruckus that happened, but boy am I paying for it. My toes look like sausages and my ankles have completely disappeared. When the girls at school used to complain that being pregnant towards the end made them feel ugly I thought they were talking about their belly and all the weight they gained. Now I'm thinking that it was just a kind of an overall feeling of "Yuck, that's totally gross" when their body started doing things they didn't expect.

Rand thinks I'm "really hot looking" which basically means he is brain damaged but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. But even he conceded that my feet and ankles looked a "little swollen." I felt like I was walking around on clown feet by the time lunch had come and gone.

It wasn't so bad in the morning. Everyone had agreed to start the swap meet an hour early to try and avoid some of the heat. It didn't work. As soon as the sun hit the morning sky the heat index started climbing. We opened the upper bay doors on the barn but left the cows inside, left the chickens locked in their run and also left the pigs and goats in their sheds though they had more freedom than the cows did. I suppose it was a hardship for me to go to the Swap Meet with Rand but I … well I really wanted to. I like being home most of the time but I just wanted to get out and see people which was kind of weird since people are usually the last thing in the world I want to have anything to do with.

I put the muffins in a basket and we ate them along the way. Austin must have said something to Rand because he commented, "Hey, they don't taste like they have birdseed in them." I guess that was a compliment.

Mitch and Ron and a couple of other men I didn't recognize met us about half way up our road and escorted us to the Swap Meet. The men all looked uncomfortable but I didn't understand why and guys being what they are no one was offering an explanation. I looked at Rand and he just shrugged his shoulders.

"Good grief, why has everyone got the mullygrubs this morning?" I asked, my curiosity finally getting the best of me.

My question only made the men squirm and then Ron spoke up in the gravely quiet voice that he's had ever since the day of the fire. "It's me."

"It's you what?"

Ron looked at me and then his face softened a bit and he said, "Kiri, you know good and well the Harbingers were … well … "

"Oh … well 'were' is the correct word to use. You and Stevie are the only Harbingers left. I don't guess a baby is much of a threat and you're a changed man so what's the problem?"

Ron rolled his eyes but since I wasn't giving up he said, "Memories are long and the things I did were wrong."

"And … you've already done your best to atone for things so I still don't see the problem. Half the people I've met around here seem to have something quirky in their background whether it is them or their family. And if they didn't before the sickness they have since. We're all a little on the eccentric side these days if we weren't before. You'd figure people wouldn't worry so much about the splinter in their neighbor's eye when they've got a great big ol' log in their own."

Ron looked at me and then his mouth twitched and that is just about as close to a smile as he would let himself get. Then he said, "Rand, you ain't gonna have any hair left by the time you're my age."

Rand's response nearly had me giving him a kiss in public. "Do I look like I'm complaining?" he laughed.

Ron's response nearly made me cry. "Naw, naw you don't for a fact. You're a lucky man," he trailed off and his eyes got this funny faraway look full of what could have beens and fears of what may never be.

For whatever reason the other men seemed to adjust their attitudes and we travelled the rest of the way much more comfortable silence. I think the general attitude of our party actually set the tone for how people received us. I think it short-circuited a few that were carrying a chip on their shoulders and were looking for a fight.

People looked at the thresher hungrily as we pulled in to the allocated spot away from the general flow of foot traffic but they were keeping their distance and no one appeared to be angry, at least not in the crowd that was there first thing in the morning. Rand got me down and before he could try and figure out a nice way of telling me I was underfoot and in the way I told him I was going over to see Missy. He looked relieved and I had a hard time not laughing at him. It wouldn't be good for him to know that I've gotten a lot better about figuring out what is going on in his head. It might make him nervous or something. Then he'd try to get mysterious and it would only make it hard on me again.

Missy has finally lost all the weight that she put on with the baby. The thing is she has lost even more weight than that and there is even some grey in her hair that I didn't notice before. She's still a beautiful woman but it looks like she is aging before her time. Noticing that on Missy made me really look at other people I saw today. I saw a lot more than I wanted to see. The world we've been living in for the last two years – first with the pandemic and then with the aftermath of it – hasn't been kind to people. Grief, hard work, and short rations have taking their toll. Bill's white blonde crew cut is liberally sprinkled with white streaks. Uncle George … well he's always looked old to me but even I can tell that he's looking older than he did before. People are thinner for the most part unless they started out really big and some of those folks that have lost a lot of weight look really bad and there isn't any way to cover it up.

Momma O was at the Swap Meet and I was really surprised after the way she was acting the last time I saw her. So was Mrs. Withrow and some of the other LA ladies. Mrs. Withrow noticed my confusion and told me, "Honey, when you get to be our age death is a constant companion and on some days when the arthritis gets to you or you've heard that another person you've known forever has gone on, well, you know your time is coming as well. But that doesn't mean we don't have good days too."

I'm … well, I guess I don't have any room to talk. I'm not there yet. When I'm old I just hope I don't freak my kids out with talking about death like it is a neighbor that is coming to call pretty soon. It's not that I'm afraid to die or anything like that but it just does seem odd not to fight it tooth and nail.

And we did a little bit of fighting it today. It was getting on towards lunch time and most of the locals had come and gone leaving the outsider crowd still mingling amongst the stalls and tables of the people set up for trading. Most of the outsiders are OK and would probably fit into our community if they moved here but there is a rough element that comes around as well. Some of them are from the immigrant camps, allowed out on furlough for the day (guarantee some of them never went back), and some of them were from up and down the river. River folks I really don't mind; they're a little on the wild side 'cause they are out looking for a good time or a good bargain, but where ever these other folks were from they were a bad lot from the word go.

Mitch spotted them first and had his men cruising up and down the aisles but when someone is bound and determined to start a ruckus I don't guess anyone else's commonsense is going to stop them. Bill saw the start of the brawl from where he was loading things up in the trailer. He whistled to the men who are his regular helpers and they started throwing things into the trailer to close the stall down.

"Bill, what on earth?" Missy looked up and asked him.

"Brawl. Heading this way. I want you and the baby in the cab … now."

I guess when Bill used a certain tone of voice Missy listened. Or maybe it was experience. Or maybe it was just thinking about their son's safety. But when Bill said what he wanted Missy gave it to him.

"Come on. You can … oh, never mind, there's Austin come running."

Austin, red cheeked from running in the heat, came barreling up. "Rand wants to know if you're ready to go 'cause he wants to get the thresher out of harm's way."

That sounded like a plan to me and I waddled as fast as I could as Austin turned to run back to help Rand hitch everything back up for the road. I just don't waddle so fast and I had to watch double for people … first for me and then for my belly that took up a lot of room.

"Kiri! " Ron Harbinger went thundering right by me and I heard his horse collide with another one. I turned to look over my shoulder and saw Ron fighting on horseback with another man. I turned around to get going the right direction a little faster when this man stepped in front of me and said, "I know plenty of men who'd pay real gold for a gal like you."

I don't know where my brains get to sometimes. I pulled my pistol and aimed it at the man's rooster parts and said, "You sure? 'Cause I can be a ton of trouble when I've a mind to."

He snorted and turned to join a fight that had broken out a few feet down one of the aisles and I continued unmolested the rest of the way to Rand who was trying to work and try to see where I was at the same time. It made him look spastic.

"Rand, honestly, be careful! You're going to fall!"

"Kiri! You're here."

"Well, where else would I be? You asked me if I was ready to go and it looks like everything is shutting down anyway. Seems a shame as the day started out so nice."

Rand looked at me real hard. "Babe? Why do you have your pistol out?"

"Varmints in the underbrush."

"Kiri …" Rand started warningly.

That's when Ron rode up with a cut on his chin. "Those rustlers from south Florida or someone who associates with 'em."

"What?! Why those no good … (blip) (blip) (blip)." My teeth nearly fell out. Rand isn't prone to using that kind of language and to have him to do with what I thought was so little provocation just floored me. I found out what he was so bent out of shape about that it would make him lose his religion after Austin went to be and he could assure himself that I was still here and all right but I don't feel like going into again. I finally wore Rand out enough that he could go to sleep and now I guess I'm wore out enough too.

 **May 14** **th** – Oh my gosh! Rand and Austin surprised me so much today. It's Mother's Day you see and I never even thought much about it but I woke up with something tickling my nose. Rand had pulled a feather out of my old duster and was using it to wake me up.

Well all that did was make me laugh so hard at how silly he was being I had to rush to the bathroom after he helped me to roll out of bed. When I got back he and Austin had set up a bed table and told me that I wasn't to do any chores today. And I didn't … not really. I had to help get the scorched taste out of the green beans when they let the water cook out of them and I saved the cake they were baking from burning but other than that, not a bit of work.

I had a lovely day. I even washed my hair and took some time to just read a book for pleasure … it was an old Trixie Belden book that used to be Momma's. I thought Rand and Austin had gone for a walk but he came back in and caught me upstairs crying looking at the old photo books of times when things were like they used to be. I miss Momma. Who am I supposed to ask how to be a momma to this baby?

 **May 15** **th** – I started sniffling and crying yesterday so I just decided to stop writing. It doesn't bring Momma back to cry about it and I guess it is actually one of those things that does more harm than good to wallow in it.

I meant to get around to telling why Rand was so bent out of shape after the Swap Meet but it is one of those things you don't like to think about but I suppose after today I might as well go ahead and put something down if for no other reason than to get it out of my system.

Apparently – and this is just a rumor as far as I'm concerned because it just sounds so farfetched – there is a network of men who are trafficking in humans. Can you believe it? Slavery is alive and well. Yuck. It seems that the pandemic and subsequent social and physical upheaval took a heavy toll on women and children. I can almost see why some couples might be so crazy as to want a child for their own if they lost all of their biological children and couldn't have any more but apparently that isn't what it is about. It is about work and how much it takes to run a home or homestead these days. When I said slavery I meant that literally.

There are also forced indentures. Say you get into debt over your head, or you want to travel out of an area but it costs more than you have and your aren't willing to wait, you can sign off on so many years worth of labor in exchange for transportation, food and lodging, security, or just about anything. I just can't understand why people would bargain away their freedom like that.

But it is the slavery that really gets to me and makes me kind of sick to my stomach. Imagine if Austin had fallen into the clutches of people like that. Imagine if I had on my bike ride from Tampa. Imagine a parent willing to bargain away the life of one child so that the other can eat. I just don't know what things are coming to. And listening to myself say things like that makes me feel old. I used to not care what things were coming to, I was tired and wanted to be with my parents. I was too wrapped up in my own problems to look around and really understand what was going on around me. Now … now there are days when I you couldn't pay me to go back to being that person but I sure would like some of that innocence back. It scares me for what my baby is going to have to face in the future if we can't get a hold of things like that now.

 **May 16** **th** – My hands are purple. Of course that's better than having purple feet which is what Rand and Austin have. The blueberries came in after all. I was afraid we hadn't started irrigating them in time and I went out to the garden early this morning expecting to see them all on the ground and lo and behold the bushes were full of ripe berries. But for some weird reason they are coming ripe all at once. That wasn't the case last year.

I've got a mess on my hands figuratively and literally. I would have called over to the Crenshaws to see if I could get Alicia or someone to come help but that what we get for not having phones any more. I suppose we could have used the radio set up that Rand finished with Bill and Ram's help but that's only for emergencies and for listening. The only kind of chatter we hear these days isn't the kind of stuff I want to listen to. People are crazy and there are all sorts of rumors, most of whom prove out to be exaggerations or outright lies. I can't stand to listen to it; it gives me a headache.

Besides, at least for today I've been busy canning and drying blueberries. I'll have more to do tomorrow but what I don't get tomorrow will probably fall to the ground unless I can pick them all and put them in the cooler, then I might squeeze another day in.

And why would Austin and Rand's feet be purple? That was kind of funny. Rand found a patch of wild blueberries all but buried in the grass on one of the near 40s. He'd hoped to bag some quail but they've all taken to the grass because it is so hot. Well he was bent over looking for trails through the tall grass when he spies what he thinks is a small patch but the more he investigated the bigger the patch turned out to be. He finally came and got Austin and they must have picked three bushels in an hour and a half.

What did he do with these berries? Did he give them to me so I wouldn't have to go out into the hot berry patch and pick them myself? No. He did a total guy thing and if he hadn't look so silly doing it I think I might have gotten upset. He made blueberry and raisin wine. He swiped a couple of my remaining yeast packets which didn't make me too happy but since it was the first time in a couple of days I saw him looking actually enthusiastic rather than tired and drained I couldn't say no.

As far as what I've been making with the blueberries I made some more blueberry relish because that went over so well that I ran out around Christmas time if I remember right. I tripled the batch on that because I figure Uncle George will want some and I'm also making up some stuff to trade with Ram. I just don't feel right taking things from him for free even though I know he is doing it because he thinks of me as a little sister. He has a family now too and we both need to be generous but be smart about it.

I dried a bunch of blueberries naturally and I also made a large batch of blueberry fruit leathers. Those don't keep as long as I wish they did but sealing them in a jar and then putting them out in the cooler ought to help some. Austin deserves to have a treat now and again even if we can't afford to buy him some of the stuff that comes through the Trade Shack like some of the other parents splurge on. He's a good boy and I like being his Momma even if it is a big sister kind of mother. He always seems so surprised when Rand or I do something just for his sake and for no other reason. It makes me really wonder how bad he had it growing up. His grandfather taught him a lot and obviously gave him some love but it also seems like he was never first in line for anything.

The other stuff that I made today was blueberry syrup, but I'm making less of that this year because I need to conserve my white sugar that I have left, and then all the different conserves and preserves that I've got recipes for. Tomorrow it will mostly be juice I expect. If there is anything left after that I plan on trying to make a blueberry mousse.

 **May 17** **th** – Nice surprise. Alicia came over to visit and stayed to help with the blueberries. I haven't seen her too much since Tommy left us. She seems to be dealing with things better but there are still shadows under her eyes. Austin didn't know what to say to her but she gave him a hug to let him know it was OK. I hope she has started to heal. They say grief is a process. I remember it being like that … and sometimes it is a long painful process.

 **May 20** **th** – I've been too tired to post. But we had some excitement today that I want to mark the occasion of. Rand finished building the horse drawn irrigator … and it works. A couple of the hose fittings leak but Rand thinks he can fix that and it took a while for the mules to get use to the jangling everything does but it does work.

But the dog is a nuisance. Austin thought it was funny but I could tell Rand was losing patience and asked Austin to hold onto Woofer's collar. The crazy dog was trying to play in the spray of the irrigator like a kid in a sprinkler. I wish he would enjoy his baths as much as he enjoys getting into things he shouldn't.

As soon as Woofer was under control Rand took the irrigator for a spin in the garden. I asked him how it felt and he said a little more difficult to work than the cultivator but that just meant that he'd need to drive slower. The long arms that fed and held the hoses off the ground will need to be reinforced because they really bounce around making getting an even spray kind of hard but Rand is so happy that he said, "Babe, something is better than nothing even if I have to make two passes to make sure everything gets some. Now so long as the well holds out we should do OK no matter how long the rains take to get here. And now that I know this is going to work I'll take the plans to Brendon and Ron and they can make one for the farm over there so I don't have to drive this one across the roads and worry about bending the axle on this old wagon bed.

Salvaging things is getting harder. All of the old homesteads have pretty much been picked clean and those that haven't have been pulled out and refurbishes and put to work. There are a few people that have converted tractors to methane or ethanol (corn liquor more likely) but they are clunkety things compared to Rand's horse drawn equipment and prone to breaking down.

Our mules certainly do get a work out. I was worried about Hatchet getting jealous but lately he's really started settling down. I think it is Austin working with him all the time. Of course he's still not too partial to me but he doesn't try and bit anymore which is a relief. Rand still doesn't want me to go out to the corral unless he or Austin are with me but I figure that's just fine. I do miss riding the mules but in the shape I'm in I don't even know if I could get up in the saddle much less stay in it.

 **May 21** **st** – I wish I could have taken a picture of Uncle George's face when he saw the irrigator. It was priceless. I guess he hadn't had much confidence in Rand being able to get one figured out. Ron and Brendon spent most of the morning making copies of Rand's hand drawings and asking him questions to clarify when the diagram wasn't clear to them. Uncle George spent the morning going over the whole thing and taking measurements and making a few suggestions for the leaky fittings.

He was in the middle of looking at something when he stopped and yelled, "Brendon, get that bag that Ram sent over for Kiri before I forget about it."

Brendon still hops to when his Daddy bellows like that and I guess I would to if my Daddy was here but it's odd knowing that Brendon is a father himself now. I guess you have to make some compromises if you are going to stay under your parent's roof.

Almost afraid to look in the bag I took it inside to open in privacy.

 _Hermana, I know the baby is coming soon and I thought you might could use these. If you don't need them pass them along to someone who can as there is no way I'm going to let Missy catch me with them. She'd never let me live it down. Your Hermano_

A couple of those really expensive books you could only afford to check out at the library slid out of the bag. They looked like they came from some doctor's library. The Process of Labor and Delivery, The Pros and Cons of Natural Child Birth, and others that dealt with emergencies that can occur during a home birth, how to avoid medical interventions like forceps and the pictures nearly turned my head inside out. I'm a prude, I admit it. Maybe I'm a real stick about the whole keeping certain things covered and I know I really give Ken a hard time when he wants to give me an exam but my word. And Ram is right, this shouldn't fall into the wrong hands. When I'm finished with them I'll give them to Ken and he can dispose of them as he thinks best.

Missy really would have teased Ram unmercifully. Seems like now that he is married to the right woman he's turned into a prude himself … at least when it comes to women he considers his family or part of his extended and adopted family. Alicia says that he growls as bad as Uncle George does if some young man gets too close to Charlene or Janet.

I haven't gotten to see too much of those two except at church and Charlene is always surrounding by a bunch of young men … some not as young as they should be. What am I saying? Charlene and I are pretty close to the same age. Why am I suddenly acting like I'm so much older than she is? Goodness I think I need to get over myself or something.

For instance, today at the church services the boys were buzzing around Charlene as thick as flies. But I'm not so sure that Charlene likes it much. She seemed pretty happy when I went over to say hello which pretty much killed the mood when I started talking about heart burn, flatulence, and swollen feet.

Charlene looked at me very serious and then started giggling and said, "Thank you! I was starting to have trouble breathing. I wish they wouldn't act so stupid. I'm … well, I've decided I'm not ready to settle down and have kids. Life is hard enough helping at home, you know?"

"Like you need to ask me that?" I laughed right back.

"Seriously, you look like you're going to explode at any second. Daddy was saying last night that folks are laying odds that you and Rand … uh … I mean …"

"That Rand and I what?"

"Well, that maybe you're farther along than you're saying if you know what I mean."

"No I don't under … oh … oh how awful. You mean they think that Rand and I … before we got married and stuff? But, if that were true I'd have had the baby a long time ago and …"

"Take it easy. Nobody who matters thinks that. And no matter what you say some people are going to have dirty minds. You should have heard some of the things they said about Alicia and Brendon and they really did get caught before they got married."

"Well I don't like it when people talk about me behind my back," I insisted.

"Would you rather they get up in your face about it? They're stupid and that's all you need to think about it."

"That sounds like something Missy would say."

She laughed again, "Probably. Daddy says I'm getting more like her every day. But it is strange, he doesn't make that sound quite as bad a thing as he used to. I guess he and Missy have come a long way from where they used to be."

"Where's Janet? I thought she would be here today."

"She had another spell last night."

Worried I said, "Oh no."

"Daddy had Ken out last week since she's had so many lately. Ken seems to think the heat might be setting them off or maybe an electrolyte imbalance or something. Daddy has Ram and Bill trying to find some mineral supplements for her. Last night's spell was pretty bad. She was half way up the steps when it happened. If Laurabeth hadn't been coming down from putting Stevie in a clean diaper she might have taken a really bad fall. Daddy is moving her down to the first floor until we can find something that will get the spells back under control."

We are all worried about Janet. She was getting so much better and stronger and now this set back. Rand told me that Ken seems to think that the "spells" might be an arrhythmia but he's not for sure because as soon as the "spell" is over with all of her vital signs are normal and he's never been there while she is in the middle of one of them.

Good brown gravy it is hot. Too hot to write as much as I feel like writing. I'm going to be the one having a spell if we don't get some cooler weather soon. I feel like I'm being roasted alive. Not even sitting in the shower is helping any more.


	95. Chapter 94

Chapter 94

 **May 23** **rd** – Blueberries, blueberries, blueberries …. Actually I'm having a blast and probably shouldn't be. The last two days Alicia and Brendon have been over here and I've had so much fun. Brendon was grinning like a fool when he came in and found us both acting silly. Last night when we went to bed I asked what was up with Brendon acting so … so … like it was such a surprise. Rand said that Alicia has been real slow to come back from her brother's death. It has brought up a lot of unresolved stuff from her childhood.

I get that. All of my "unresolved issues" started after my family was killed and I still run smack dab into it every so often, even now. Thank goodness Rand understands and gives me room to get my head on straight when I'm having a bad day. Looks like Brendon is taking a page out of his playbook and doing the same. I'm just glad Alicia is coming around. If I could have picked a sister she is pretty close to what I would have picked. We don't get in each other's business but we are certainly more than friends; a weird feeling for me considering that isn't something that I ever thought I wanted.

She and I traipsed all over the place while Brendon watched the baby. Well we traipsed as far as all of the parcels of land that immediately surround ours – finding wild blueberry patches and sparkleberry patches to piece out the domesticated blueberries in the orchard. We did that early in the morning and then in the afternoon we preserved them. We had to walk since I can't ride the mules but we did have one of the burros with us to haul the berry buckets and all the water we had to carry. We were totally drenched in sweat by the time we got back to the house both times. First day I was fine but today I had to rest before I could start lunch and then start on the berries. No berry picking tomorrow though which as much fun as it has been I'm ready to let go of doing.

I think between the last two days we have gotten about all the blueberries we are going to get. The dry weather hasn't done us any favors. Neither have the moochers. Well, I know that might sound a little mean but it sure does seem that people are just doing stuff because they can rather than because it is the right thing or not. On the other hand it is hard to justify being mad at someone for picking berries when it isn't on your land. I've heard that some folks have set watches on patches of berries that they've staked out. I've even heard of berry rustling of all things. Getting in gun fights over a few pints of berries just seems pretty extreme but more than one feud seems to have started over it.

With the weather people aren't much better off than they were this time last year. What they are however is wiser in the ways of surviving and being self-sufficient. At least most of the people from around here are; some of the immigrants still not so much since they've been surviving on handouts at the government camps. Surviving means getting out there and finding it yourself which in turn means to support your family you have to cover a pretty large area. So far no one has actually come onto our land – maybe my reputation does some good after all – but Rand worries that it is only a matter of time. Desperate people will act desperately.

 **May 24** **th** – Isn't it strange? I talk about desperate people and how Rand was worrying and sure enough doesn't someone have to go and act stupid. Maybe I shouldn't write anything like that down. Too many times I've caught myself wondering about something in this journal only to have it come true a little bit down the road. Makes me wonder if there really isn't something to the concept of jinxes.

I overdid it yesterday for sure and was all used up by the time I finished writing in my journal. My problem was that I wasn't just done over by the heat but all that bending up and down had caused my back to ache. Every time I tried to lie down something would start pulling. I knew from experience that when my back was drawing that bad I might as well get up and just sit on the sofa until the muscles relaxed enough for me to go back to bed.

So there I am sitting in what amounts to my all together, swollen ankles all splayed out and wearing the thinnest and shortest sundress I've got and nothing underneath if you catch my drift. I had just finished putting a fresh sheet on the sofa, sat down, and leaned my head back when Woofer pads up to me and makes that weird noise he makes when he needs water or to go out to hit the bushes. I had just gotten semi-comfortable and wasn't happy about having to get back up.

I eventually leavered myself up – no small chore – and stumbled to the kitchen because by then a cool drink of water was sounding good to me as well. The pump is by the side door and I heard a bang. Woofer immediately goes into guard mode, pushing against my legs like he is trying to back me out of the room. All I'm thinking is that I'm going to have me a Coon Skin Jacket next winter if they've gotten into my flower pots again. Only, upon closer listening I realized that raccoons don't curse … at least not in a thick Boston accent.

First voice asked angrily, "Plan on waking the dead Phil?"

"Hey, isn't my fault these hillbillies don't pick up theyar yad. I thought you sod that the wada would be easy to lift," another man hissed.

"This is the one that is able to irrigate his fields. He can affod to miss a liddle," responded a third man.

Back to the first one who said, "We not gonna get a thing if you fools don stop with your nonsense. The well must be around heeya someplace."

I waddled as fast as I could to the bedroom and shook Rand awake while Woofer kept watch. Of course the looby thought it was the baby and I had to yank on his ear pretty good to get him to stop acting like such a guy and actually listen to me.

"Ow! God almighty girl, do you have to do that?!"

"Then will you stop it? I'm not having the baby. And be quiet, I heard someone outside the kitchen door," I hissed practically inside his ear.

He stopped dead, shook himself, and got down to business. After listening to me whisper what I'd heard he said, "Wake Austin up then I want you to get upstairs." I opened my mouth to object and got the look that said to not waste time arguing. "Don't Kiri. I can't think if I'm worried about you and the baby." Throwing me a bone he added, "And if you are upstairs you might see something I miss from the ground. Now go."

I got all right but I wasn't too happy about it. On the other hand I'm no fool even though I may act like one on occasion. I wanted to keep the baby safe and I didn't want to take any of Rand's concentration away so that he and Austin could stay safe. Humph. Still didn't mean that I had to feel good about not being able to provide Rand with any back up. And I still don't. I feel more like a liability every day. I'm used to carrying my own weight but as heavy as I am right now … and the why of it … there is no way I'm going to be doing that for a while.

I didn't see any of the action but I heard the commotion, especially the five live rounds that went off, and it was one of the hardest twenty minutes of my life to wait for Rand to give the all clear. I came down to find Austin and Woofer standing guard over two men while a third had been drug a little ways off, obviously dead from a shotgun blast to the chest.

It was a long night after that. The men trying to plead their case and us doing our best to ignore how pathetic they sounded and looked. Austin was the one that told me only the dead man had fired on their side and he had reaped the reward for it too.

"Momma, he really meant it. I could tell from the look on his face. He was angry. Real angry."

Austin has got into the habit of calling me "Momma" in times of stress. If he is thinking about it, or there are other boys around, he still calls me Kiri. I didn't let the men or Rand see but I gave him a hug and thanked him for looking after Rand and Woofer and helping us to defend our home. I swear if he didn't turn around and give me the same look Woofer does when you find his itchiest spot and scratch it until he is content.

At first light Rand rode out and caught one of Mitch's patrols going by. It got a little complicated after that. Used to be that we could deal out justice without anyone outside the community getting involved and even though I still have the occasional nightmare from the hanging I've come to terms with the necessity of it. But these men were migrants and claimed to be under the protection of the men in charge of the military camp.

From there we had to wait until some MPs could come out and get things cleared up. Those two men would have been better off keeping their mouths shut. I was … well not horrified by their fate or anything like that but I was sure as heck surprised. Seems the three men had gone AWOL after being issued passes to attend the Swap Meet. Word had just come down that austerity measures were in effect. From now on if someone was caught during the commission of a crime AND found to be AWOL they were to be immediately tried, convicted, and put on the nearest boat out to the barrier islands or prison barges, whichever was closest and least crowded. That is all but a death sentence for most folks.

See what happens is that those places are like prisons without walls or wardens. Supplies are shipped in weekly, assuming there are any supplies to ship. Whatever the population was they had to make it last the whole week or use whatever snares, traps, etc. that they'd been able to cobble together to live off of the sea life that surrounded the prison.

The prison barge is worse than a barrier island; some of the populations on the barrier islands are actually making something of themselves, have gardens, and a thriving barter system. The barges are just plain nasty and remind me of that old sci-fi movie called _Escape From New York_. If you aren't crazy when you get put on one of those and you live, you'll be next to crazy when you come off.

The whole situation has taken up most of the day and I wasn't too happy or comfortable having strangers coming and going from our land. It isn't that we hide away from people on purpose but I like my privacy and Rand and Austin have come to appreciate it as well. Not even Mr. Henderson or his men come around as much as they used to. Guess they've got too many other irons in the fire. Rand says they've got problems of their own.

Mr. Henderson isn't ailing exactly but he isn't coming back from being hurt the way a younger man would. There is this whole "preparing the heir for his power" kind of thing occurring too. Mitch knows his stuff out in the field for sure but I guess there are still family things going on behind the closed walls of the ranch. And Mr. Henderson getting married so late really shook some folks up even though the relationship was an open secret for years. None of my business really, at least so long as whatever the problems are doesn't roll down hill to us.

I'm just glad our bit of trouble is over with for now. I've only catnapped today and I'm feeling particularly heavy, like everything is starting to shift. Uncle George came by to check on us when word reached the Shack, so did Ram, and Pastor Ken also came by. They all keep looking at me sideways. What? Do they think an alien is going to pop out of my belly at any point? Serve them right if it did. I'm getting ready for this baby to pop out myself.

 **May 28** **th** \- Had a really nasty storm come through day before yesterday. Just what we needed to top off an already sour time. Seems those immigrant men had families and they were trying to set up some kind of homestead to take them to. It is a bad, sad business. Rand told me one of the boys went AWOL to come hunt us up and was asking over at the Shack. Luckily Ram took the boy aside and held onto him until he calmed down some and could hear the explanation of what had really happened.

The boy is still angry but Ram doesn't think he'll get violent. Besides, he made the boy an offer he couldn't refuse. He offered him a job down in south Florida as a courier of sorts on one of the supply trains that Ram is an investor in. If the kid sticks it out he'll be able to earn more than his father could have stolen in a much shorter amount of time.

"Ram! A boy?! I thought you told me those supply trains were dangerous."

"Yeah, and you're such an old woman," Ram snorted at me.

Still upset I tried to continue, "But …"

"Kiri, don't tell me my business and I won't tell you yours. Giving that boy a job, even if it is a dangerous one, will keep him out of trouble and away from the family. I get tired of having to sleep with one eye open every night."

"Then don't get involved in such shady business deals."

"It puts food on the table Hermanita … for all of us. You like the spices and stuff that I bring you don't you?"

More than upset I said, "I hope that you aren't trying to buy me Ram. That's insulting."

"No … no Baby Sister, not that. I hope I'm smart enough to know that you are the last person whose affections could be bought. But think on this … I like being able to provide those things to you and the others. And I like the profits to be made even if they are at a slight risk to me."

I rolled my eyes, "Slight risk?"

Ram just smiled and shook his head all machismo and testosterone. He's just impossible to reason with. Not having to worry so much about sugar is nice but I could learn to do what was needed with the sorghum if I had to. I like the spices and stuff that he is shipping in from the Caribbean too though I'm not really sure I want to know how he is pulling that off. I don't like that the last shipment he brought in included several barrels of rum but almost everyone, even Mrs. Withrow, all but told me to stop being such a prude about it. I guess there are always going to be trade offs but seems to me that sooner or later all the little risks are going to catch up and something bad is going to happen.

But for now it is the storm that has taken up most of our time. The little bit of rain we got out of it certainly wasn't worth all of the wind damage we suffered. And there was a lightening caused fire in Columbia County that got up into the city proper and did no small amount of damage to the buildings, even if they were empty.

Rand and Austin had thinned out some of our woods felling trees for the fire wood that is so necessary for every day life nowadays. Even still, we lost two good sized oak trees when they just laid over from where their roots had died back because of the drought. We also had one snap off at the top and blow down across the main gate. Now that was a mess. The metal gate is mangled and Rand isn't sure that he can hammer it back into good enough shape to re-hang. That's a kick in the pants we didn't need.

The roof was also ripped off the goat shed in several places. Rand said he'll just have to make it with wooden shakes to replace to the asphalt shingles that had been on the roof. There are a couple of large cedar trees growing in an area that he wants to turn into another field for next year. He'll saw the trunks into lengths that he'll then split lengthwise. I asked him if he had ever done it before and he said, "The summer I worked for Bud and Lou. A lot of Mennonites still do everything old school. They aren't necessarily opposed to using some stuff that is out on the market, they just … " At that point we got interrupted by Mitch Peters and Hoss coming down the road. And shock of all shocks Cassie was with them.

"Hi!" she sang out just about as cheery as I've ever heard her.

Cassie is a lot nicer than I gave her credit for being in the beginning but there still feels like there is a gulf between us. Not what I would call a bad one just, I don't know if we'll ever be "best buds" or anything approaching it.

Rand met the group on horseback while I waddled around to the kitchen side to make sure there was cold water and some cups in case they were thirsty. The weather was hot enough to steam vegetables still on the vine and everyone was wringing wet from sweat.

I was coming out when Cassie came around the side of the house and took the pitcher from me. At least she left me the tray and cups so that I didn't feel completely useless. "Here, let me get that. I'm surprised Austin isn't around to help."

She didn't mean it the way it sounded, that was just Cassie's way. "Rand has him out trying to round up a little bull calf that was born a couple of days ago. He's worried at how the mother isn't letting it nurse enough. She's an ornery thing to begin with but if she keeps this up she may be burger before this winter. We need another bull but we don't know which of the two that were born that we are going to keep yet."

Cassie nodded knowledgably. "Poppy is having the same problem. This drought is stressing out the cattle. We're having to move them between pastures pretty quick so that over grazing doesn't happen. It isn't like we can go down to the feed store to pick up new seed."

"Is your grandfather irrigating the fields?"

"He is considering it but that is a lot more time and work for our people not to mention that much water would need to come from the river. Two of our creeks have dried up and Mitch is worried about stressing the two ag wells we have managed to keep going, we need them for watering the animals."

We walked up as the men were discussing the damage the storm had done. Even with the goat shed and the tree over the road we got off lightly. Lots of drought-stressed trees have "laid over," some of them in inconvenient or dangerous locations.

Hoss told us, "A tree came down on the orphan barracks at the refugee camp in the middle the storm completely crushed one end of the building. Destroyed about a half dozen bunk beds before it was through falling. Lucky for the kids though that it was a slow fall and the barrack monitor heard it when it first hit and got everyone out before anyone got hurt. But they have a mess to try and rebuild. Those kids always get the last of everything."

I noticed Cassie was standing next to Mitch with a really angry look on her face all of a sudden. Before I could open my mouth and ask she burst out, "If they'd just let the folks around here that have offered to take them in have them those kids never would have been in danger to begin with."

Mitch put his arm around her and drew her close like he was trying to calm her down or comfort her. "Cassie, easy now. Hoss checked and Lola wasn't hurt. She didn't even wake up apparently, just got carried out in her sleep."

Apparently everyone but me knew the story. I elbowed Rand gently and after figuring out what I meant he clued me in. "Oh, yeah, you weren't there that day. Lola is one of the orphans. What she's four?"

Cassie said, "Three. Her mother just up and went AWOL with one of the river men and never came back for her."

"Anyway, Mr. Henderson takes stuff over to the camp when he can and sometimes they bring some of the orphans out to the ranch to play. Lola has an older brother that wants to come work for Mr. Henderson … he's good with horses and would like to learn to be a Ferrier. Problem is he is only thirteen and the rule is that kids have to be fourteen before the feds will let them sign up for a work program of any kind. He comes to the ranch every chance he gets and he started bringing his little sister.

"You should see her Kiri, she is the most adorable little thing. And smart … she already knows most of her alphabet. She minds better than most of the ranch kids do." Cassie gushed, a look of adoration on her face.

Even Mitch nodded, "She is a cute kid. Follows Cassie around like a puppy. And it looks like she might have the same talent with horses her brother does. Most little kids don't realize that even the foals can hurt them. We had a mare that got in a bad fight with a stallion when the dang mule got his dander up and broke into the paddock where we keep the new mothers and foals. We had to pull her out so we could see whether we'd have to put her down or if she could be patched. The foal got scared and then I've never seen the like … Lola went up to the fence before anyone even thought to stop her and started talking to that foal and if you believe it the little fella just calmed right down and leaned up against the fence where she was the whole time until we came to fetch him to take him to put in the stall beside his Momma."

Not that the story wasn't interesting but I thought seeing Mitch put his arm around Cassie and the way those two were acting even more so. Rand just shrugged his shoulders when I asked him what was up so that means a trip to Momma O's or some questions for the ladies at church this coming Sunday.

May 29th – Too dang hot to write.

May 30th – Still too much heat to make anything worth doing. Heard from Pastor Ken … that man seems bent on pestering the life out of me … that an old man over off of River Road died of heat exhaustion. No one knows much about him. He was a squatter that moved into what was left of the old Harbinger place. Ron had gone over to check on the place when he found the body. He'd been dead a couple of days and apparently the dogs he'd kept had been at him. How Ken could tell he'd died of heat exhaustion I don't know, maybe there are signs on the body that don't disappear in death.

That was nasty bit of news. Also some bad news came that the river folk are getting restless and moving inland again. I've said many times that most of them are decent people but they seem to be easily stirred up by the bad fish amongst them. The Suwannee River is running very low as are several other rivers. Because of the drought crop production is down so even if they could navigate the rivers they wouldn't have much to transport.

Rand said the heat is making everyone testy if not actually downright nasty. It's just too hot to ask the mules to pull the heavy thresher long distances and when Rand told a man that had ridden out to get him to bring the thresher the guy just went berserk . It scared Austin who was up at the end of the road with him clearing the fence line so that they could run a new fire break. I'm getting a little tired of how entitled people feel to take advantage of our good fortune. Rand is smart and we hit the ground running when it came to setting our place up. I don't want to be uncharitable but why should that mean that we simply give away what we've worked so hard for? Sharing is one thing but that is a two-sided coin with each party giving and getting. Some people, like that man today, seem to think they have the right to just take what they want and offer whatever they feel like in return, if anything at all.

May 31st – That man from yesterday came back today and this time he brought friends. I'm still shaking. Rand and Austin had gone up to the road early to do some more of the fence line. We let it go too long and it is a horrible mess in some places and they were restringing the barb wire in a couple of sections as well because it had become stretched out or actually broken. I fixed a basket of biscuits and a jug of cold ginger fizz for them (not as good as store bought ginger ale used to be but on a hot day you don't really care) and I was going to drop it off to them and then head on to Momma O's to see if she could help me figure out what I was doing wrong on a bodice of this little baby overall I am trying to make.

Rand has a set of stairs for me to get into the pony cart that I hook the most docile burro to. I was thinking about what I could have done wrong … I cut down a larger size pattern but nothing seemed to be working right for some reason … and was going slow because the last thing I wanted to do was have the baby by jiggling him out head first on a rough wooden seat. The burro wasn't inclined to go fast anyway considering how hot it was.

Actually it was a good thing I was going so slow otherwise I would have turned the corner before I was aware of the trouble I was driving into. The men had Austin by the arms and Rand and some other guy was going at it pretty good. I recognized the guy egging the fighting on as the guy from yesterday. I was in a quandary what to do … sometimes just a female showing up with make the guys knock it off … but when I saw the one guy getting his gun off of his horse I kinda took the Kiri road mentally.

By the time I was down from the pony cart … it isn't getting down that is the problem so much as getting up into it … I heard a lot of rough laughter and when I peeked around the tree at the corner of the road they'd swung Austin away and to the ground. A guy was getting ready to kick him and I aimed for his head but hit him in the rear bumper instead. Talk about your fancy stepping. He reminded me of the old sound clip where the Disney character named Goofy falls from some great height.

The rest of the idiots made grabs for their guns and I just didn't even bother to try and figure out exactly how hostile they were. I just emptied the magazine one shot at a time. Only three of them wound up being death shots, but I did enough damage with the rest of them to make them knock off what they were doing. I was in the middle of reloading when Mr. Henderson himself road up with several of his men.

My stomach got real tight and all I could do was sit down on the ground right there … thank goodness not in an ant pile … and try and stick my head between my knees to keep from being sick. I didn't even realize it but one of Henderson's men, I don't know which one, had ridden back to see who'd been shooting. Next thing I know Rand is there, not quite a bloody as I expected, and he was putting me in the back of the pony cart. Between there and home I made him stop so I could sit up and puke, not once but twice.

I've been in bed since with Ken hovering around like a doggone vulture. I'm not ready to have this baby so it can't come out yet. I still have the bed linens to finish, more diapers to try and make, and just everything. I'm just not ready and that is all there is to it. And now, on top of everything else, I'm on bed rest again.

 **June 2** **nd** – I'm on ultra light duty for the duration. Austin helped me to plant the okra, black eyed peas, and some sweet potatoes that Rand got in trade. I don't know why we are planting, no rain. And tell me why, even though I haven't done much I am so tired?! Gosh I'm cranky. I don't even feel like writing anymore so I'm not.


	96. Chapter 95

Chapter 95

 **Jun 4** **th** – Things have been real quiet. We were supposed to go to church today but the weather has looked so scary that Rand doesn't want to leave Sparkleberry Ranch. I can't blame him. I hate when the sky has that nasty green tinge to it. Still no rain but I'm thinking we might see something soon; there has been some really odd, cold breezes come out of nowhere.

 **June 5** **th** – I'd no sooner written those words last night than we had a brief hail storm followed by a heavy down pour that lasted almost an hour. It was scary the way the wind whipped and shook things. Rand went out this morning and two huge limbs were in our road. He used the mules to pull them to the side and then he and Austin went to check on folks.

It wasn't good. Not many people saw the hail but the heavy down pour caught a lot by surprise. Momma O's family was okay and so was most everyone else on our side of the county but word at the Shack was that down in Mayo and further south outside the county in Bell and Trenton, the damage was pretty extensive. Lots of downed trees. Both the rivers were able to hold the water and keep any flooding at bay. Maybe that was the reason for the drought, so that the rivers and streams and ponds would be low enough to hold the rain to keep something worse from happening.

I'm just beat all to pieces. Scared myself for one. I thought I really was in labor but with both Rand and Austin away I didn't have any choice but to let things be whatever it was going to be. But it stopped. It must have been that false labor, those Braxton-Hicks contractions, that the books and the other women have spoken to me about. The worry did more harm than the scare did.

I never realized, not really ever given myself a chance to realize, that I'm scared. I've hurt before and I know you survive it, especially since I know that it will be over with at some point, but I'm scared all the same. To think that some little person is going to come out of me, possibly ripping me to up in the process … I can't tell you the dreams I'm starting to have about it. If I write the dreams down it means that I'm going to have to admit to being scared.

I haven't told Rand about it because I already know he is scared and worried. He hasn't said as much in so many words … well, maybe a little … but he's been trying really hard not to show it. He still thinks about LauraBeth and what she went through. And I think he thinks about the other stories we've heard about how the birth is going OK one minute and then suddenly there is some major emergency and no one to help with it. Sometimes the stories still come out all right but a lot of the time they don't. I guess that is why the old cemeteries are so full of babies and women who have died giving birth to them.

Gak … morbid. I just have to have faith. But at the same time I can't be blind to what might happen … not what will but what might.

I've been making a notebook. I haven't told Rand about it, nor Austin. It is a book about a lot of stuff that if something happens to me, the last of my family, I would want someone to remember. Most of the stuff in the notebook is good. And it has been good for me … therapeutic … to remember it and write it down. But some of the stuff hasn't been good. But, it has still been good to write it out. It is the kind of stuff that teaches life lessons, about my mistakes that I don't want my kid to repeat.

If something does happen, that notebook will be for whoever is left … the baby … or Rand. Gosh, I'm making myself cry. Better stop before Rand asks why.

 **June 7** **th** – I've finally got everything for the baby finished. All the stuff for the cradle and the baby bed. All the little clothes. I've gotten the diapers sewn and the little covers to go over the diapers. I decided to do everything in yellow and green. Actually I didn't have much choice to do everything in yellow and green, it is the only yarn and embroidery floss that I had in any quantity.

I finished the edging on the last spit up rag as Rand and Austin were sitting down to a late lunch. And get this … Rand asks, "Why are you bothering to put a lace edge on a rag the kid is going to puke on?"

"Because I can. I want the baby to have … stuff to use that doesn't look like it comes out of a rag bag."

"But it did come out of a rag bag. Right? You didn't use trade goods to buy something like that … did you?"

So what if I did. I contribute plenty to the stuff that goes to the Shack. I don't know why Rand had to get so bent out of shape about it. He's never acted that way before. I don't know why he had to act that way today. He got all snippy and started lecturing me … me of all people … about being more frugal and being responsible.

I was so surprised that I just sat there and took it. Then he got up and stomped outside and went back to work. I sure as heck don't know what burr he sat on.

 **June 8** **th** – Rand is still foul and now I'm foul. We got in this really big … well it was big but we had to whisper so that Austin couldn't hear us … argument. It was after we went to bed last night. He wanted to cuddle and I have to tell you I was just too tired and hot to cuddle and well, one thing led to another and he started acting all weird and saying stuff that totally isn't true. Like I only think of the baby. Or, I never pay him that particular kind of attention anymore and don't want to either.

Personally I think he's lost his marbles or something. I'm fat. I've got stretch marks that are competing with my scars, neither of which will ever go away. I'm hot. No matter what I do I can't get away from it. I can't even enjoy a cool bath anymore because Ken says that it might not be such a good idea. I'm so big and so far along I can't get in and out without a lot of help and I could get hurt. None of my shoes fit so I'm barefooted or in tired sandals all the time which shows my legs and only a couple of pieces of my clothes fit … and that's if I don't mind that they're so tight you can see my stomach ripple with the baby moves. And I feel like I have an alien inside me. Yeah, I'm going to feel like doing that sort of stuff when I feel like this. Right. Sure I will.

We've only been talking to each other because we don't want to upset Austin. I suppose that is something to work with but still … first the lecture on money like I'm some kind of spendaholic bimbo and now he acts like I don't have any consideration at all for his feelings.

Oh no … more thunder. That's all we need.

 **Jun 9** **th** – Rain. And rain. And some more rain. Either Rand is going to go out of this house for a while or I am. I'm so mad I could just about spit. You know, if he is scared that is one thing but he's making me feel like I'm disgusting or something and I'm … I'm …

I think I'm gonna cry. What did I ever do to wind up in this kind of situation?

 **June 10** **th** – Wash day … in the rain. It was either wash or watch all the dirty clothes mildew and ruin. Rand acted like I was out of my mind and then complained that I had laundry strung all through the house like a hillbilly housewife … and threw in the barefoot and pregnant remark just to get a little dig in.

We aren't speaking to each other at all now. He made me so mad I threw a pair of his wet underwear at him and they caught him in the face and the look of surprise caught me off guard and I started to laugh.

Then he really went off how I didn't appreciate anything. That he was stressed out and it was shaving years off his life and had I seen that he'd actually started having gray hair and … and then I lost it and left the room and went upstairs to the hidden bonus room and locked the door and had a long cry.

He did try to come up a couple of times but I was still pretty wasted and I screamed at him to stay away and leave me alone since I didn't seem to suit him anymore. He stopped after a while and I guess I fell asleep on the pallet up here. I got up because I had to use the outhouse but it was too dark and the house was all locked up so I used the bathroom that Austin uses at night.

He'd just gone to bed. I guess I can't blame him. I don't know what is wrong or what we are coming to. I thought having a baby would be joyous and happy, make us even more of a family but it is so scary and it seems to be doing just the opposite.

I'm so tired I just don't know what to do anymore.

 **June 11** **th** – Church day. Doesn't seem any day is restful any more. I couldn't sleep hardly at all last night. My back was killing me and I doubt I'll sleep much tonight after what I heard at the services.

Bandits are getting really bad. The drought has ruined a lot of peoples' gardens and people have reverted to taking what they need whether anyone else wants to give it to them or not. The heat, the drought followed by these intense rains we've been having, the bandits … the news was sobering. I didn't like the news but at least it took my mind off of my own troubles.

Then the service. Talk about guilt tripping. I swear I wonder how Ken knows just what to preach to make me squirm. It was all about family and how husbands and wives are supposed to treat each other, how men and women are supposed to act. It made me feel worse because it didn't look like Rand was feeling anywhere near as guilty as I was feeling.

I was so uncomfortable on those old metal chairs. Rand snipped at me to stop squirming and distracting him. I felt the tears welling up and he looked like he was so satisfied by that. I escaped to help with the dinner on the grounds as soon as I saw some of the other women leaving. As soon as I got to the tarp that had been set up all I heard from several ladies was, "Aw Honey, we didn't expect you to help. We didn't put you down for anything. Why don't you just go back inside."

Well, going back was the last thing I wanted to do so I wandered off behind the building to find a little shade even if I did have to fight the mosquitoes for a share of it.

"Child, come out from them bushes. You're gonna get chiggers if nothing else." Nothing like Mrs. Withrow's commonsense to put me in my place. "Now, you walk with me over to that fountain and you tell me what's wrong."

"I didn't say anything was wrong," I protested.

"You're mouth didn't but I can tell it all the same. And that husband of yours doesn't appear to be acting himself either."

Then it all just came pouring out. All of it … how I was feeling, how Rand was making me feel, how only thinking of how I felt made me feel selfish and therefore worse, how I didn't understand why Rand was acting like he was acting, just all of it. I kept waiting for her to laugh or tell me I was overreacting.

"Come here child. Let's go sit on that bench over there." When we were settled, neither of us particularly comfortable on the hard stone, she said, "Now, I can't tell you why Rand is acting like he is acting. It does sound out of character. Could be for several reasons or he might not have a good enough one. He might be tired. Or he could just be worried about all the new responsibility that will be coming his way with this baby … and he could be scared that he might be facing those responsibilities on his own if the Good Lord decides to call you Home. Do you want someone … maybe Ken … to speak to him for you?"

"No!" I told her. "Definitely not. I can only imagine that would make it worse, embarrass him … and me. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. And If I'm not doing something wrong, what the problem is all of a sudden. I mean the world might be going crazy but Sparkleberry Ranch was a place that … that separated us from all of that. It was out there but it didn't come home with us. Do you understand what I mean?"

She nodded her head like some kind of wise Buddah, "Sure do. Your house is your home and your home is your haven from the world."

"Exactly," I told her.

"But you know you can't just run away and hide from what is going on. And Rand is out in it more than you. He's more than likely bringing the worries home with him and you are sensing it even if you don't know for sure what you are dealing with."

"So that means that I'm the one not cutting him enough slack."

"Not necessarily," she said. "Like I said, I can't speak for Rand. I do remember what it felt like to be this far along. And I imagine you are pretty worried about what is shortly to come."

"It's … it's not the pain, not really. I've lived with pain off and on for a long time … well, a long time to me. I know that pain comes and pain goes. I think … I think I even have the idea of being a mother down. Austin helped with that a lot. So did remembering my own Momma and how … how she wasn't perfect but she loved me with her whole heart. I don't know what it is exactly … just kind of a feeling of … of impending doom."

"Why child? Why do you think you feel this way?"

"Because the other shoe always drops," I told her finally putting into words what I'd only been dancing around when I talked to myself. "Things always happen to take away … to take away … " I couldn't finish it. Then I whispered, "I've been happier these last months than I think I ever have been my whole life, even with all of the bad stuff that has happened. But nothing lasts forever. Nothing. At least not in my experience."

There. I'd said it. Nothing lasts forever.

I think she was going to say something but then there was a scream. Mrs. Withrow and I moved at about the same speed these days so we limped our way over to where the ruckus was going on. There was a crowd and I heard a woman's voice screaming, "I don't care. Take it away. Get rid of it. I don't want it. It just about killed me and now it is sucking the life out of me. I can't take this anymore. If you don't get it away from me I'll do something to it. I swear I will."

"Oh dear," I heard Mrs. Withrow whisper. "It's that woman from over on River Road. She just had a baby … her man left a few months back and hasn't come back … her mother has been worried about her, said the birth turned her brain."

"It" turned out to be her baby. The only time she would calm down is when the baby disappeared from her sight.

Then another woman went and picked up the baby where it had been flung to the ground and drew it to her like it was the most precious thing in the world. I saw her look at the man with her with pleading and pain-filled eyes. Mrs. Withrow whispered to me, "That's Margaret Timberlake. She had a baby girl but it died the next day and Ken still isn't sure why. It only just happened. Look at her dress; she wants that baby so bad."

Mrs. Timberlakes bosom area was drenched and likely not from sweat. I guess the baby crying had made her milk start up and all the emotions and everything with it.

It was two hours before things were settled. We stayed the entire time to continue the dinner on the grounds but also because Rand had been asked to be a witness to all the papers and everything that the Judge eventually wrote out and had both families sign and the witnesses too to make sure no one was being coerced.

The little girl, called Daisy, was going to go live with the Timberlake family for at least a year with no recourse by the birth mother. This was to ensure that Daisy would be nursed until she could be safely weaned with no danger to her health. At that time the birth mother had one week to make known her intentions to ask for Daisy to come back to her and the request put before the Judge and a group of responsible citizens of the district. If she did not object, or was found to be an unfit mother for some reason, the adoption would become permanent. The birth mother's parents were heartbroken until Margaret Timberlake said that she would never think of excluding Daisy's maternal grandparents from her life and hoped, that if their daughter ever did take Daisy back, that she'd be allowed to keep in touch with the little girl.

I don't see that it was a perfect solution, given all of the unknowns of the future, but it looks like the best one that could have happened with the options that were available. I overheard several women discussing the possibility that the birth mother was suffering some kind of post partum psychosis. There used to be drugs and psychotherapy to help women that suffered from that. I bet there were a lot of women who were locked up in asylums in the old days that could have suffered from something like that. Rotten hormones causing a chemical imbalance in the brain … you didn't have any say over it happening or not. How horrible to have to protect your baby from yourself.

 **June 12** **th** – From bad to worse.

I'm sitting here in the orchard trying to catch a breeze after check on the plum trees. That hail storm didn't help them but the damage doesn't look catastrophic now that the trees have had a few days to heal. But that isn't what I was going to write about. It has been a rough morning and it is either sit down and write it out or just fall down.

If it wasn't bad enough at church services yesterday, news of a major raid at the Henderson Ranch had us scrambling this morning. You know the raiders are bold and arrogant if they did something like that. Rand was called to help first thing this morning. I didn't want him to go but I couldn't very well tell him not to, Mr. Henderson and Mitch and the rest of them have done so much for us. And it bothers me that we still haven't quite made up though we are being carefully polite to one another. I hope that is a good sign. I've determined that no matter what Rand and I are going to talk it out tonight.

He and Austin came back for a few minutes to let me know that it was mostly OK. Some injuries but the attack was so odd. Maybe they were desperate but they did more cosmetic damage to the ranch's wall than real damage to the ranch itself. Rand and Austin went back to help clean up some more and to try and see if they could figure out the weirdness.

That's odd … they just left and now here they are again. Why would they ….


	97. Chapter 96

Chapter 96

 **June 15** **th** –

I swear that I'll find you. If it takes the rest of my life Kiri I will find you. I won't let it end this way, I won't let this end at all. I feel so guilty Babe. I'm so sorry. I wasn't here when you needed me … again. When Austin and I got back and couldn't find you. It was Austin that found the blood in the orchard when he heard Woofer start howling. We've did everything we could for Fraidy but it wasn't enough. I don't know how I'm going to tell you when you get home that your poor cat is gone.

I saved your journal. It got a little wet in the rain but not too bad. I swear I didn't mean to read it, not at first. I was just cleaning it up with your pen and ink, putting everything back together so you'd know where it was when you get home. But once I started I couldn't seem to stop. It was like falling in love with you all over again. So many times you worried for nothing and the times you should have been worried it doesn't even seem to have registered. We have a lot to talk about. Soon. When you get home.

The raiders are all over the place. There are so many of them. There was some kind of escape off of one of the prison islands and they let loose some of the prison barges. It's been like being swarmed by bees. I need you here, where I can see you and know you are safe. Where are you?!

Ram is crazy. Crazier than he used to be. He and Bill, they've interrogated a few men but no one knows what we are talking about. There's been rumors … seems like the slavers are joined up with the escaped convicts. I pray that you are safe. You have to be. You need to come home. The baby will be here soon and I want you to sit down and rest before that happens.

Austin is finally asleep. He's so shook up that he doesn't know whether he is coming or going. I wanted him to go stay with Uncle George but he nearly came unglued at the mere suggestion so I didn't push him.

I haven't been able to sleep. I can't sleep. How am I supposed to sleep with you not here?


	98. Chapter 97

Chapter 97

A young girl had nudged Rand, waking him from an accidental doze.

"Peepaw, you promised after you finished your glass of tea you would tell us the rest of the story of your first true love."

"Oh I did did I?" he playfully teased as he hugged his sweet little granddaughter. He looked over at his daughter in law and saw that she was about to "rescue him" from the rest of the story telling but he shook his head. Everyone in the family knew that he'd been sensitive about what had happened for years, still was if he was honest with himself. After they'd stolen his bride away and her big and pregnant he'd gone through a bad time that took a lot of years to get over. He'd turn hard against anyone that he thought was a threat and he wasn't near as generous when he thought someone was trying to take advantage of his family.

Uncle George, Ram, Ken, Bill, Mitch … and their families … they all stood by him during that time and eventually, slowly he healed and could once again interact with people without immediately assuming the worst. But here he was, an old man … probably older than he had any right to expect considering the world he'd lived through … and still he'd wake up in the night in a cold sweat searching for his lost bride in the dark of the house.

Austin, despite being just a boy and a young one at that, was a lifesaver during those early weeks and months. He remembered being so tore up there were days he'd have a hard time getting all the farm work done and would have let it go and hang the consequences if he hadn't needed to be a provider. Even his health was affected and in the fall of that year he got a bad case of pneumonia that almost took him off. But he survived and despite everything Sparkleberry Ranch had grown and prospered.

Austin never left home except for a brief spell when he'd worked with Ram. He'd gotten a chance to see a bit of the world but in the end chose to come back and eventually marry. During that time the rule of land was that if you could fence it in and maintain it then it was yours whether you had a piece of legal paper to prove it or not. When Austin married they'd finally finished fencing in one of the eighty acre plots next to Sparkleberry Ranch's original forty and they built a little house so that Austin and his wife could have some privacy. These days it was Austin's sons that did a lot of the heavier work around the home place leaving him to rest on his laurels a bit. Seems people age faster than they use to and when he looked in the mirror in the mornings he didn't see a man in the prime of his life, not yet sixty, but a white haired old geezer looking man that he nearly didn't recognize.

Last week a rare inland hurricane had taken most of the roof off of Austin's house and now his house was filled to the rafters with kids and household goods like it hadn't been in years. As much as he loved having everyone around every so often the children rattled his nerves. Yesterday had been one such day and he'd sought peace and quiet up in the hidden room, a space that rarely saw use except in times like these. Mostly it had become a repository of everything that no one used but didn't want to throw out just in case it might one day come in handy again.

He'd been cleaning out and organizing some piles of such debris when he saw her old portable desk. The rain that day had ruined it. He'd tried at various times to repair it but the water damage had mangled the joints, swelled the lid so badly the hinges didn't work, and thrown the whole box out of square. He'd finally given up on it and he still remembered when Austin carried it upstairs because his inability to repair it and make it like new upset him.

He'd picked it up and when he'd tried to open it the whole thing fell apart in his hands. It shook him up pretty good and as he was picking up the pieces he noticed her journal. When she'd first gone missing he carried it everywhere with him and then after a while he'd practically enshrined the thing like a religious artifact. He remembered he'd even written in it once but never had again feeling it was somehow sacrilegious. But there it was again, and in pretty good shape too considering its age. He didn't have a clue what made him do it but he sat down again and relived that first year remembering all the bad things but finally being old enough to accept the comfort of the good as well.

This morning the little girls had been pestering him for a story and nothing seemed to suit his mood accept for him to tell them about how things used to be. Oh he'd glossed over some of the horrors, they were just little girls and he didn't want to give them nightmares, but now he'd come to the really horrible part of the story and he'd been struggling to find a way to finish it. He wanted them to know the truth so they could really appreciate what life had been like but …

"I swear Rand Joiner, over forty years and I still can't get you to leave your muddy boots out on the porch. Look at my kitchen floor. Now I'm going to have to clean it before I can start cleaning this corn so I can get it canned up. And get that innocent look off your face Austin, your boots are just as bad as his."

Austin grinned, "Yes Momma." Turning to Rand he said, "I'm going to go check the triticale, see if that back corner of the plot is salvageable or not."

Rand grumped, "You going to leave me to be the only one tortured for dragging in mud?"

Austin laughed outright at that, "You love it and you know it. Momma, if the kids get to fretting you, send 'em out to the field and I'll work off some of their energy for you."

Austin kissed the gray-haired old woman on the cheek and left the house. She turned and noticed the book in Rand's hands. "Where on earth did you find that old thing? I haven't seen it in years. I thought it must have gotten put in the compost pile."

The little girl was now getting very impatient with the adults. She'd been promised a story and a story was what she wanted. "Memaw, Peepaw was telling us the story of his first true love."

The old woman cocked an eyebrow at the old man, "Oh he was was he?"

"Yes ma'am. It was so exciting; full of adventure and love and bad guys and good guys all sorts of stuff. They don't tell us these kinds of story in school, they make everything sooooo boring. But now he won't finish, he just wants to take a nap." The little girl was a little spoiled, she was the youngest of the Austin's children and they'd gotten a little lax with her.

"And with that attitude you may never hear the rest of the story. You want me to send you out to the field like your father said?"

The little girl new when her Memaw used that tone of voice you'd better rethink how you were behaving. "No ma'am. I'm sorry but … but he was just getting to the good part, the part I never get to hear about because everyone thinks I'm too little."

"Oh," the old woman said in understanding. She looked over at her husband of so many years and saw he'd been reliving those awful weeks all over again. She turned to the little girl and said, "That was a bad time for everyone Joy. It was when your father was still a little boy. And it was the summer right before Peepaw got so sick we didn't know whether we'd lose him."

"But I know that part of it, I just want to hear about the rest of it … how you escaped and survived and eventually came back to Peepaw and lived happily ever after. I'm a big girl now, it won't give me bad dreams like Paulie says, I know it won't."

Kiri looked at Rand and then reached over and patted his hand. "I tell you what Joy, you help me skin this corn out of their husks and help me get all of the silk off and I'll tell you the rest of the story. We'll let Peepaw sit and rock a spell and just listen. That sound good?"

And the little girl jumped up and grabbed a large woven basket and put it on the floor at her feet and picked up the first corn and began to husk it with a will. "Yes ma'am. I'll help do all of it just please, please, please tell the story."

Kiri just laughed and shook her head and pulled up a chair to do her share of the corn while Rand rocked and listened with half an ear while he remembered what was written on the last few pages of the journal.

 **July 31** **st** – Rand is finally asleep. He watches me like a hawk and it makes me nervous how intense he is. I move just a little bit and he jumps a mile. Ken was by this morning, the off and on bleeding has finally stopped all together and the fever hasn't come back for over a week now. He agreed with me that it wasn't going to hurt for me to get out of this bed and get a little exercise and I thought Rand was going to come unglued.

I finally managed to get him to go check on Pretty Boy for me to see he was healed up with that new cat had come around looking for dinner. I still miss Fraidy but all of her kittens are so feral I haven't got the strength to tame one of them yet. While Rand was out of the room I asked Ken about how Rand was acting.

"If I had to diagnose him I'd say he was suffering from PTSD. That's …"

I brushed his explanation off and I told him, "I know what it is, that's what they thought I had after the accident. But why would he have it and not me. It doesn't make sense."

"Kiri, Rand was in … he was in very bad shape while you were gone. A couple of us were really beginning to wonder if we wouldn't lose him too. I expected him to just fade away or ride off on that horse of his to wander forever looking for you. If it hadn't been for Austin I expect that is exactly what he would have done."

"I know. You aren't the first person that has told me that. And I can see with my own eyes the truth of it. But what I want to know is what I can do to help him."

"There isn't much you can do except to try and give him some time and understanding. This will either resolve itself or it won't; either way it is going to take time."

I've tried to get Rand to talk about it some but what do I know? I can remember resisting everyone's attempts to get me to talk after the accident that killed my family; I shouldn't have been surprised that Rand is doing the same thing. But I am. Rand is supposed to be the level-headed one, the steady one. Now it feels like we are reversing roles and I'm just about too hurt and tired to manage it right now.

I got up to change my gown this morning when I stumbled across my journal. My desk is a lost cause even though Rand swears he'll fix it for me. That's not happening but he seems so insistent that I don't have the heart to try and argue him out of it.

I saw what he'd written after that day and it worries me as much as the way he is acting now. I have a feeling that we have a long hard row to hoe in front of us. This whole area does. Mrs. Withrow, who came by a couple of days ago, says this whole area does. Between the storm damage and the civil unrest that reminded everyone of the worst days after the last pandemic wave there is just so much work to be done and nowhere near the resources to get it done like there used to be. The abandoned properties have long ago been picked over and picked apart for scrap building supplies or burnt down to deal with rodent infestation. The remnants of the government and military are almost solely focused on trying to keep other countries from pilfering what resources we have left. Ram was saying the other day that we can't count on recycling forever, that we have got to rebuild some type of manufacturing base or we are going to really fall back into the Dark Ages and that it might last longer than the first one did.

I guess I'm still weaker than I want to admit because to even start thinking about all of that stuff makes me physically ill. And when Rand notices it, especially after someone has come for a visit and I've gotten a little bit of a view what is going on beyond my own front porch, he starts swearing up and down that there wasn't going to be another visitor come through our door until they learn to watch their mouths.

I'm still finding it so hard to understand how I could go through what I went through and come out better off than Rand has who only experienced it from the outside. Wait, that isn't fair. He just experienced a different part of the situation. This is so confusing. Maybe if I write out what happened I'll be able to understand things better, more objectively.


	99. Chapter 98

Chapter 98

No matter how hard I try to focus on details that first day and week is still kind of hazy. I don't know if it is shock or what but it feels like there are chunks of time missing, or maybe I was just "gone away" trying to deal with my terror.

I remember sitting in the orchard, trying to escape some of the heat. I remember feeling full as a tick from eating the first of the ripe plums. I can even remember how juicy and delicious they were in contrast to my expectations; I was surprised that the drought hadn't done more damage to them. Rand and Austin had come and gone again and then I heard a noise like they'd come back for some reason and that's when I was attacked.

A large man back handed me hard enough to set my ear to ringing, cause a gash inside my mouth and bloody my nose all in just a single swat. I tried to grab my gun but it was kicked away from me by another man and in the process it felt like a couple of my fingers had been broken although it turned out they were just badly bruised and sprained.

I remember Fraidy squalling as she leapt from the limb she'd been laying on above where I had been sitting. She raked the face of the man that had hit me and he shouted and threw her off and then shot at her. I was too disoriented at the time to know whether she had been hit but I later found out that she'd collapsed on the spot, bleeding profusely for an animal her size. That and shock is what killed her, I just didn't know it then.

Before I even had time to register the questions in my mind a sledge hammer sized fist caught me on the side of the head and that's all I remember for a long time.

I must have been in and out of consciousness several times because hazy pictures, like phantasms drifting in front of me, give me the feeling that I was lifted up onto a horse and held there in a vice like grip. Then there is a sense of being transferred to small boat, maybe a canoe or bassboat, and covered by something that crinkled and smelled bad. But that was the last thing until I came to completely and found myself in the dark. I could tell it was night after I had sat up and peered through the small, mesh covered windows used to ventilate the box that I and several other women and girls were being held in. I could also tell we were being transported on some type of wagon by the sound of wheels, hooves, and the creaking the wood made as it swayed.

"Where are we? What's going on?" I asked the woman I knew was beside me though I could not see her face clearly.

"Shhhh," several others said. "Don't make noise."

I didn't have time to wonder why because something loud was banged on the box we were in and an oily voice said, "Last warning. One more cluck out of you hens and I'll pull to the side of the road and let my men use you until you grasp the concept of obedience."

I felt a hand, a calloused but definitely female hand, cover my mouth. Not hard enough to hurt me but firm enough for me to get the point that this wasn't the first warning that had been given and that the group didn't want to pay the consequences for one captive's actions.

The motion of the wagon was nausea inducing and I fell into a stupor just to escape feeling ill and frightened at the same time. As a few days passed, and we continued being transported like livestock, I learned that I wasn't the only pregnant female in the group. In fact almost three-quarters of the dozen women were obviously pregnant but I was the one furthest along. It made no sense but no answers were forthcoming. We were forbidden to speak or make any sort of noise or communicate with each other in any way.

It was a strange existence. We were let out of the box three times a day under heavy guard. While we were out of the box we took care of our bodily functions and were fed surprisingly well. I don't know about the other women but I was so numbed that I really wasn't living in this dimension of time and space. I thought of Rand and Austin and everyone else but it was like I existed in a fog that protected me. It was a lot like the fugue state I had survived in after the accident … I was insulated and protected and was able to function to a primitive degree that helped me to survive without drawing unwanted attention. Even in my state however I could tell some of the other women weren't fairing as well however.

On my fourth fully wakeful day one of the women finally collapsed completely. She was one of the pregnant ones. She started cramping and bleeding. The other women tried to hush her cries of pain and fear but I'd reached my own level of simple acceptance.

Despite the other women trying to stop me I tried to get the Oily Man's attention. "Excuse me …. Hey Mister … excuse me … we have an emergency and …"

The wagon stopped, "What did I say was going to happen if you hens gave me any trouble."

Forcing myself to behave in an ingratiating way I said, "Yes sir, I know sir but one of the women … she's bleeding pretty badly."

There was a great deal of cursing that was followed by, "You better not be yanking my chain you little #$%& or I'll guarantee you won't be fit to serve a man for the rest of your life. Cardo, see if we have a sick hen in the box."

The guy the Oily Man had called Cardo opened the larger window on the back door of the box letting enough light in that we all had to shield our eyes. One look was enough to convince him there was a problem and he let out a string of foul words that would have peeled paint if there had been any on the box.

It was over in less than two hours and they hid the body of the woman and her stillborn daughter in a shallow grave that wouldn't have kept out the laziest scavengers. We were all sniveling and crying if we weren't in shock and that's when the Oily Man gave another one of his terror inducing ultimatums.

"Listen up you buncha broody hens. I won't accept the loss of any more profit. You feel the baby coming you cross your legs and you hold it. We'll be where we're going in less than a day. Anyone of you do what that one did and before you expire you'll wish you'd never been born. I'll gut you and take the baby out of your body myself before I let another one of you spoil this haul for me."

We were all forced to eat even though none of us had an easy time of choking the contents of the MRE down. But either we all ate or we would all reap the consequences. Peer pressure was how they'd started out controlling us and they still haven't deviated from that tactic. After we were made to drink some kind of electrolyte drink the remaining eleven of us were forced back into the box and my back and tail bone ached in protest.

It still didn't make a bit of sense to me, none of it did. I'd never heard of slavers that actually sought out heavily pregnant women. It would seem to be a contradiction. We couldn't do the kind of work that would make our purchase worth it. Certainly we weren't fit to be a part of some male fantasy or role-playing racket. And the way they were feeding us and taking care of our needs … relatively speaking anyway … made even less sense. We had nothing in common with the Sabine women of Roman folklore. All I could think of was the stories like the women of Jabesh-gilead, the Midianites, the victims of the Canaanites … all the stories that my Aunt had used to criticize in painful detail the treatment of women in the Bible and I had to stop after that because I couldn't handle my own thoughts anymore.

It was some hours before dawn of the following day when I started to hear water … big water as in moving water and the kind of wind you only get along a shore line. I hadn't known whether it was fresh or salt water until I smelled the brine wafting in on tendrils of air that penetrated our prison.

The briney smell got stronger and then we could hear and feel the wagon switch from the rutted dirt and paved roads that we'd gotten used to to some type of wooden planks. And then the wagon stopped.

We were left to wonder what was going on because no one bothered to tell us. In fact it was eerily quiet except for the creek and groan of what I was to learn were the ropes that tied a ship to a wharf at the abandoned and derelict yacht club where we waited.

After nearly half an hour the back door of our box flew open and we were ordered to climb out and line up. Our only connection to our past soon drove away as the Oily Man and his minions left without a backward glance and were replaced by men that were even harsher. A man whose voice and grammar belied his rough nautical appearance said, "Well ladies, times a wasting. Follow Mr. Hempley to the holding area so you can receive your promised ticket for a free cruise." When none of us moved the formerly benign smile turned into a shark's grin. "Move. Now. Some of you aren't so far gone that the men aboard these ships wouldn't be happy to spend some quality time with you."

We moved.

We were driven into two chain linked cages that reminded me of large dog runs. The first one held all of the non-pregnant women, all young and relatively pretty under the dirt and grime of their captivity. Those of us who were pregnant were ushered to a cage on the other side of a warehouse where we found even more of our kind. Here it didn't matter what your age or looks were, just so long as you were healthy and obviously well into or passed your second trimester.

Rough looking men walked around with the kind of automatic weapons I hadn't seen since my run in with the Russians. But these weren't foreigners. The few times I heard the men speak they had American accents … most of them were kind of mid-west but a few stood out … Boston with all the dropped consonants, Massachusettes with Kennedy sound-alikes, Minnesota with their long drawn out O's, a beach blonde "Dude" from the west coast, and the deep south had their fair share of representatives too that sounded too much like home to me not to bring a tear to my eyes.

Every so often two men would come in, separate one or two women out of the group and push or drag them down a hallway where they disappeared never to be seen or heard again. I tried to catch the eye of some of the women but they were all too frightened and cowed to do anything but avoid me. Finally I was too tired and too sore to try anymore and I found a relatively clean piece of floor, sat down, leaned against the fence and re-entered my protective haze.

I don't know how long I was like that but at some point I started noticing that I could hear snatches of conversation coming out of a broken window one floor up from where I sat.

"This will be quite a manifest Mr. Hempley. I do believe that I'll be able to refill the coffers of my retirement plan as planned."

A bored snort was his only response.

"And yourself Mr. Hempley? Do you still wish to buy me out as soon as the season ends?"

"Ayuh. You wouldn't be thinking of backing out of the deal now would you?" A man with a Maine accent asked with a dangerous edge to his voice.

"Oh perish the thought. Why would I do such a thing? I have other plans for my life and not this two-bit dog and pony show."

There was some quiet and then the Educated Man asked, "Any trouble makers in this group? If there are the sooner I know the sooner they can be culled from the inventory."

"Nah."

"No there aren't any or no you think there aren't any?" the Educated Man asked in a slightly irritated voice.

"Nah, theyah all numb from the shouldahs up."

I could almost see the satisfied look on the Educated Man's face. "Good, good. The fewer culls the higher the profit we'll turn. As it is I have more orders for brats than I could fill in a year."

I felt my stupor draining from me. Brats? Were they talking about us … or about our babies?

"Got sahm that are close tah poppin." I was beginning to extremely annoyed at the casual disregard for humanity in that voice.

"Too close to transport intact?"

"Ayuh. Mebbe."

Again I could hear the irritation in the Educated Man's voice. "Well, what is it, yes or no?"

"Where I in chahge I'd put 'em on the next ship out."

"Hmmmm." A brief silence and then, "Done. It will mean running heavy on an already overloaded packet but needs must when the devil drives."

"Barometah's droppin."

Wit h the business over with the Educated Man's attention was on something else. "And?"

"Weathah's turnin."

"Oh Lord, not more of your heathen weatherlore."

"Ayuh, but I'm not the bahsmahn."

"And don't you forget it. You show me the money you can buy me out, maybe even sooner than you think. But until then go get the next packet ready for loading and shipping off."

A grunt and the sound of a chair dragging across a floor and the conversation was over with. Trying to appear nonchalant I looked around to see if anyone else had heard and not one of them appeared to have done so until I looked into the eyes of a dark skinned woman who was also leaning against that part of the fence. Our eyes looked questions at each other, hers wiser than mine. I looked at her belly and she was even bigger than I was.

It took fifteen minutes but she slowly maneuvered until we were near each other. It was another few minutes while she repositioned herself and pretended to sleep while the guards passed by our position. I nearly jumped when she finally whispered from nearly unmoving lips, "We'll be next."

Looking around I saw she was right, we were the only two that looked big enough to fit the description of being 'ready to pop.'

I nodded as I scratched my nose. I hid my lips behind the same hand, "Do you know what they mean?"

It took forever but I finally pieced together her disjointed phrases and my own questions uttered like code so that no one else would be able to tell we were having a conversation. "These slavers, they kidnap pregnant women and sell them to these places called brood farms. One of the pandemic vaccines given during the second wave on in Europe seems to have affected the fertility of a significant number of people that got it. So many children were lost and there are still rich people in the world with money to buy a baby to raise as their own and inherit their wealth."

"If it was a vaccine given in Europe what's the problem here?"

"A lot of rich people went overseas to get the shot that the FDA refused to approve and import for US distribution. It did protect people from the second wave but when the third wave rolled around some mutation in the virus got mixed up with the vaccine antibodies and it turned out to attack the reproductive organs."

"How do you know this?"

"My brother is a radio tech in the Army in the Keys and I worked at the Base medical center. I got taken during a pirate raid to take out the Station on Key Largo. I've been here longer than most of the others you see in this pen. My husband was a Norwegian ex-pat and I made the mistake of thinking that it would be harder to place a bi-racial child only the reverse is true. My baby is considered an 'exotic' and the bidding really gets jacked up when they have one that is guaranteed."

I was … well I don't think there is a single word in the English language that described what I was at that moment mostly though my mad was coming back and erasing the protective fog I'd been surviving in. I still had enough sense though to hide it when I was ordered, at gun point, to take my own walk down the long hallway.

Something must have shown though because at the end of the hallway the man that belonged to the voice of the Educated man stopped me and my escort. "Hmmm. Looking a little … militant. Are we going to have trouble with you?"

I did the first thing that popped into my head. I started breathing faster and muttered, "I'm not going to be sick. I'm not going to be sick. I'm not going to be sick."

A rather contemptuous look followed by a jerk of his head telling us to move along told me that I'd managed to pull off my subterfuge. But my anger was warring with my fear as I was taken onto what looked like a pleasure craft that used to take cruises out into the Gulf. It wasn't big as far as cruise ships went … one of those dinner, dancing, and gambling boats they used to hook the tourists and retirees with … but it was bigger than anything I'd ever been on.

I was taken to and then locked in a room with several other pregnant women. A few moments later the woman I'd been whispering with was also ushered into the room. The only positive to mention was that the room had a bathroom attached to it and it was used well and frequently by all of us. A few hours later we were given food but my new friend –her name was Taylora – shook her head and only played at eating. I pulled the same ploy while the other women acted starved to death and fell on the food like hyenas.

"What gives? Is it drugged?"

I could see her nostrils flare, "No. You don't have much experience of being on the water do you?"

"No," I whispered back.

"Trust me, until you know how your stomach is going to act the last thing you want to do is fill it up with unfamiliar food."

Made sense at the time. Made a lot more sense after we had headed out to open water. Taylora and I were the only two not puking our guts up as the waves got rougher and rougher but it was close for both of us. The smell and the sound of retching was almost more than I could stand.

Then it started to rain and thunder. Taylora said, "Someone has lost their marbles. We need to find a safe harbor and fast. This is some bad ju-ju. Can't you feel it?"

"Yeah but maybe they've figured it out. We seem to be going a lot faster than we were before and … ACK! … Lordy, what is the deal with trying to operate this thing as a wave runner? We're too big for wave … oomph … hopping!"

Taylora and I both would have been knocked to the ground if she hadn't told me to make sure I always had something close at hand to grab in case a freak wave rocked the vessel. The other women weren't quite as lucky though and now instead of being able to puke into the toilet or sink they were puking on the floor where they'd fallen.

Then there was the sound of an explosion. Taylora shook her head. "This isn't right, the engine is the other direction. I hope those fools haven't let any explosives just roll around in this storm."

And then one of the starboard windows gave a huge crack as something slammed into at high velocity. Taylora shouted a fairly imaginative curse regarding the origins of the male species and told us all, "Get down and stay down! We've got some fools shooting at us!"

Now you could hear the sounds of large caliber, automatic weapons going off and frantic running up and down the hallway outside of our locked door.

"Taylora, let's try and get the door unlocked!" I shouted above the chaos.

"And go where?!" she asked like I'd lost my mind.

"No where for now but at least it would open our options! What do we have to lose!"

The only problem was there wasn't anything left in the room that would make a good weapon. I took off my boot and tried whacking at the knob but because of the rocking of the boat I couldn't hit it hard enough to do any good. And then suddenly there was a huge noise and it felt like we'd hit a sand bar or reef or something.

I only got it partially right … we'd been hit by something all right but that something was another boat ramming us. All of the women screamed and cried and prayed to whatever they believed in. Only Taylora and I seemed to still be capable of constructive thinking. A battle raged over our heads and then it got closer. Occasionally a bullet would penetrate the thin walls, once even coming close enough to me to crease the calf of my leg. I was down on the floor with Taylora trying to tie a makeshift bandage from strips of both of our dresses when there was sudden silence. Then the boat did some kind of strange twist followed by a sudden list to the port. That got the other women screaming again. Taylora and I helped each other to our feet and I had just drawn back my arm to go at the door knob again when the door was actually wrenched open.

An apparition stood in the door frame and said, "Ladies, we need to go … now!"

Several men in sailors' uniforms rushed in and started hauling the gapping women out and up the stairs to the main deck. Taylora and I struggled up the stairs both of us gasping for air and holding our stomachs by the time we'd reached the last one. That's when Taylora bent over and groaned.

"Taylora?"

"Oh why didn't I listen to my mother?! She said if I married Jarl all of our sons would be born on the water. I am so going to kill that man!"

A pink faced boy that didn't look as old as I was got a panicky look on his face and asked, "Ma'am? Are you say …?"

Taylora squinted at him and asked, "What do you think I'm saying boy?! I'm in labor!" before nearly falling over.

"Medic! Medic!" the boy yelled, his voice cracking.

"What's the problem Murphy?" asked the man who had busted down the door after running over.

"She's having a baby!"

"No kidding … oh … Oh #$%! Here, get her over to the railing. We need to get these women off. The storm is growing worse and she's starting to list badly." Even as the words left his mouth the boat shuddered and shifted under our feet and the rain was now coming down directly onto the deck making it slippery.

There calm removal of the woman from the damaged vessel suddenly became chaotic and the screams and cries of the women competed with the wind and rain that had definitely gotten worse.

Taylora was across as were half the other women when one of the lines linking the cutter and slaver vessel snapped injuring two of the sailors on our side. They were sent over and then the rest of the women went across, each accompanied by a sailor to try and speed up the evacuation process. Then it was down to me and the last sailor.

The waves were fierce and the salt spray stung my eyes so bad I could barely see. Both ships were rocking and even over the sound of the storm I could hear how tortured the ropes sounded. And then the slaver ship seemed to completely give up the fight and started listing to the port and showing its underside. I held my breath so long my chest hurt as the cutter was pulled over. As fast as they tried to bring us on board it wasn't fast enough. The tension finally broke, the remaining ropes snapped and the sailor and I dropped into the brine.


	100. Chapter 99

Chapter 99

The water closed over my head so fast I never had time to inhale. I sank and sank and … You know, that life flashing before your eyes thing is real. It wasn't like a movie; more like silent pictures played across the inside of my eyelids. Half the pictures were of stupid stuff that I hadn't even realized had meant something to me but then a picture of Rand and Austin flashed on my personal slide show and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I couldn't give up.

I struggled to the surface but then had to accept that I wasn't going to make it. And that's when an arm brushed against me and then grabbed me, dragging me the rest of the way up.

A voice shouted in my ear, "We have to move away! She's going down and she'll take us with her in the vacuum effect!"

The problem was that I didn't know which direction "away" was. The rain was coming down so hard I had yet to see the face of my rescuer. I felt him drag something over my head and then realized it was a life vest. I could feel some vibration in the water and a deep groan issued off to my left. With that my rescuer started pulling me to the right trying to get back to the cutter but it was impossible.

I'm not sure how long we were in the water but it was long enough for me to realize that the water is only warm at the beach. The water out in the middle of the Gulf is cold enough to sap your strength away. We were swept this way and that with the debris that bobbed up from the sunk slave ship.

A particularly large wave suddenly picked us up and as we came down a piece of debris slammed into the side of my rescuer's head. Now it was my turn to encourage him, to rouse him when he would fade. And then out of the blue a yellow inflatable rammed us. How my rescuer found the strength to grab it while still holding me will probably remain a mystery until Judgment Day. It was a struggle but I finally managed to climb into the life raft and hold on. But no matter how hard he tried my rescuer could never succeed in getting himself into the boat.

The waves were growing worse and his hands were bloody where the rope sawed into his skin. And he was weakening. He no longer had the strength to even pretend that he was trying to climb in the raft.

Whenever the waves would permit I'd lean over the boat and try to help him but then he said, "It's no use. I'm done." I railed at him not to give up. He took something from around his neck and somehow tossed it over mine. "Tell her I'm sorry!" I looked down to see what it was and saw he'd given me his dog tags. I looked up and asked, "Tell who …" But he was gone.

I fell back into the raft emotionally hysterical but too physically spent to express it. The lightning crashed, the thunder rolled, and if the waves hadn't been tossing the raft so much it would have filled with rain water and taken me down with it. I was left with nothing but to scream and cry out to God, asking … no demanding … to know why he was letting this happen. After all I had been through in my life I thought I deserved a little more consideration. Did God think it was funny that after losing my family, surviving the pandemic, and those first brutal months afterwards he offered me what appeared to be a shot at sublime happiness only to jerk the rug out from under me again? And what of my baby? Was it fair to let that little life come so far only to snuff the spark out before he'd even drawn his first breath?

And then I thought of Austin and of Rand and I stopped mattering. I begged and pleaded, "Just let me get home to them. Just let me get home. They need me. Austin can't handle losing a mother again so soon and Rand needs to have someone to look after to make it through the day. We need time to fix the mess we left things in or he'll let eat at him the rest of his life."

Focusing on my prayers was the only way I didn't slide into the madness of fear. And then, though it didn't seem possible, the storm got even worse. I lay in the raft and I seemed to be rising and rising and rising and then I was in free fall and I hit the water so hard I was knocked unconscious.

I have absolutely no recollection of what happened in the hours after that. Had I been awake I probably would have died of fright. I was never a big fan of open water and storms to begin with and to have to deal with both of those things on top of what I had experienced during the preceding days would have just been too much. In hindsight it has given me a much greater appreciation for the story of Jonah.

How long I was unconscious is also a mystery. By rights I never should have lived to see the sun come up. The hurricane should have handed me over to the keepers of Davy Jones' locker several times over. At the very least it should have left me adrift in the middle of nowhere to die of dehydration and exposure.

Instead I shuddered awake at the feel of something disgusting hitting me in the head; like a water gun filled with slime. I brushed my hand across my forehead only to have it come away with bird poop. A seagull was resting on the edge of the raft and soon opened its beak to laugh at me.

"Why you …!" I tried to sit up only to feel like something sharp and hot and alive had been stabbed into my abdomen. I shrieked even louder than the gull had.

"No. No, no, no, no! This can't be happening! God, did you save me for this?!" I cried.

I finally caught my breath and was able to sit up only I wish I hadn't. The bottom of the raft had a couple of inches of water in it that was tinged pink. I started crying but stopped abruptly when what I saw in front of me finally penetrated.

The raft kept bumping against some barnacle encrusted wooden posts. I looked left and right but the water line kept me well below the wooden planks above my head. I could see that they were attached lengthwise to some kind of concrete wall but that was it. But this had to mean I'd washed ashore in a town of some kind.

I screamed myself horse trying to get someone's attention. It was no use, no one was coming. I was going to have to rescue myself.

I pushed and pulled and finally maneuvered the raft to a rickety looking ladder that went from the water line up to the top of the boardwalk above my head. I had just grabbed the first rung when another pain ripped through me. I was getting slightly dopey by that point. "Hang on Junior, Momma just needs to get out of this raft, up this ladder, and find a nice soft place so that you can come into this world. Though why you are in such an all fired rush all of a sudden is beyond me. You aren't due for a few more weeks."

Huffing and puffing I finally managed to pull my salt sticky body onto the boardwalk and when I looked around I was nearly sick.

The little town on the water was nothing but a skeleton. I was pretty sure it wasn't the hurricane that had done it given the fact that it actually looked like a fire had done most of the damage. I was on my hands and knees trying to convince myself that walking was better than crawling to find some shelter. Then I heard something. It was a rhythmic beat of some kind. It reminded me a little of the sound that was made when Rand was chopping wood.

From somewhere I got the energy to head towards that sound, like it was calling me onward, hoping against hope that I'd find people. But the closer I got the less it sounded like I thought it had and when I finally turned the corner I saw a storm shutter banging against the wall of its building in the tidal breeze.

I was fast approaching the point of giving up again but something continued to pull my feet forward one at a time. Just as I reached the door and pushed it open to step inside big, fat drops of rain began to fall as if cutting off any possibility of retreat.

I looked around and realized I was in a little summer cottage. There was hardly anything to it. I'd seen sheds that were bigger than this one room efficiency that measured twelve by twelve. There was a small three-legged table in the corner of a barely there kitchenette, a small brazier that was supposed to be a fireplace, a door, two tiny windows both missing their glass, and a bed … a blessed bed.

I wasn't thinking very well, I admit it. I sat on that sheet-less mattress with no thoughts to mold, mildew, or bed bugs. And then lay back and drew my knees up and rocked myself as another pain stabbed me in the gut.

I didn't pay much attention to how long I lay there I just remember it lasted through several pains. I then from outside I heard a growl that had me sitting bolt upright. I struggled off the bed, made my way over to the door and slammed it shut, threw the distinctly out of place modern bolt, and just managed to push that pathetic little table against it on the pretence that it somehow would keep me safer.

The scare had gotten my brain working again. I knew I didn't have much more time to prepare. I looked frantically around to see what I had to work with and nearly laughed at the ludicrousness of my position. Nothing, certain nothing that I could start a fire with, but at least I could get out of my clothes and try and save them against what was going to happen.

As I struggled to remove my one remaining shoe I saw pushed under the pedestal kitchen sink a speckleware dish pan. I finished getting all my clothes except my cotton muumuu like undershirt and then, after breathing through another pain, reached under the sink and pulled the pan out. It was a lot cleaner than I had any reason to expect.

Sticking the pan out of the frameless hole that had once held a window I used the rain to wash what little dust there was away and then I filled it and drew it in and sat it on the miniscule night stand next to the bed. That's it, that's all the time I had. From that point forward all I remember was feeling like one giant corkscrew of pain was ripping me apart.

After another time warp I lost control of my body and just let nature run its course. I pushed and pushed whenever the urge struck and eventually this baby just gooshed out of me. I had absolutely no real idea what to do after that but I was fascinated with the slime covered package I'd just delivered. I knew I had to disconnect the baby from the placenta that came shortly afterwards. I pulled a string from the hem of my dress and tied it off tightly and then used rubbed the edge of one of the metal dog tags on the rough limestone wall above my head, rinsed it in the pan, and then used the newly sharpened "knife" to cut the umbilical cord.

It was only after I'd finished that and brought the yowling baby up to nurse like I had seen LauraBeth do that I finally realized I had a son. "Your Daddy will be so proud of us. And just wait until he gets a load of you. You may be small but you sure are feisty."

I was exhausted but strangely unable to settle. All the women that I had listened to had said as soon as they had given birth and made sure the baby had all its fingers and toes they were so exhausted they fell into a dreamless sleep. Not me.

I tried to put it down to the mess. I hate sleeping in a messy bed and a blood soaked mattress certainly qualified as messy but it was more than that. I didn't know what was wrong but I was beginning to freak out … and beginning to hurt again. I couldn't tell if my fear was causing the pain or if the pain was causing the fear.

I know I've written several times of being afraid since I had been kidnapped, even petrified and ready to die but this fear, there is no describing it. I didn't know what was going on. My baby was here, I couldn't get sick, I couldn't die. There was no one to take care of … to take care of … and out of nowhere I knew exactly what my baby's name was. There was no one around to take care of Beau. I had to be OK. I had to be the one to put Beau into Rand's arms.

I felt like I was splitting wide open all over again and then I realized something in a very disconnected way. My stomach had never gotten flaccid, there was something still in there. I pushed and pushed and pushed to get it out. This one was so much harder than Beau who lay there crying pathetically while I was unable to comfort him. And then finally with one last herculean effort I got it out of me … and it started crying.

"Two of them?" I thought, thunderstruck at the very notion. "What the heck am I supposed to do with two of them?"

But I repeated the process of detaching the baby from the umbilical cord and placenta and brought the two babies up to my bare chest trying to warm them since the night air had a weird chill to it despite it being the middle of summer.

A boy … and a girl. Beau … and Belle. I thought, "Rand is so going to freak out. Someone needs to have a movie camera going when I show up with not one but two babies in tow."

But it wasn't to be that easy. Sometime during the night I started getting sick.


	101. Chapter 100

Chapter 100

I didn't exactly sleep that night. I was constantly thirsty and when I didn't wake up thirsty Beau and Belle woke me up wanting to chow. I swear you would think that babies that were smaller than regular babies would have smaller appetites but if I didn't feel like a heifer at the milking stand I don't think any woman ever has. And my little Beans were making me a bit sore. I was sure I wasn't doing something right but how the heck was I supposed to know at that point? It isn't like I had anyone to ask.

And to pile insult on top of injury I noticed that every time I moved around I kind of … well … gushed. I'd read about post partum bleeding in those books but I didn't realize it was going to be quite so … er … prolific. I was in a hard way. I needed something to use for my feminine needs. I needed something that could act like diapers and wipes for the twins. I needed something that could cover all three of us. And I knew I would need something to make a sling or something out of so that I could carry my little B&B Beans.

I knew I would have to do some exploring but I felt so lightheaded, but at the same time my head hurt so bad it felt like it was a twelve pound bowling ball sitting on top of a toothpick. The pounding was so bad I was nauseous. Or maybe it was just the fact that I hadn't eaten.

As I was tearing my pregnancy muumuu up as much as I could and still retain some modesty I found the little packages of food that I'd stuffed into my pockets. It was just a few packages of crush pretzels, peanuts, and some kind of trail mix, like those little packages you were given on airplanes, but not being too sacrilegious about it they seemed like manna from Heaven at the time.

I fixed myself up the best I could and just said to heck with it and left Beau and Belle au natural. We were all so gross that a little more nasty wouldn't make that much difference. The babies didn't really smell bad despite it all; their guts were still pretty clean. It was me that smelled disgusting. I tore a strip off the bottom of my dress wide enough so that it made a passable sling like the one that I had sewn and put away in the baby's room … make that babies' room. Since it was already sewn together at the seam I didn't even have to tie it and because my little Beans were small I only needed one sling to carry them both with. I figured they were used to sleeping all smooshed together so I didn't worry about it.

Walking was … unpleasant. OK, that doesn't cover it … I was sore, gross, smelled, walking around in tore up clothes in danger of losing my modesty with stuff all but hanging out in the breeze that hadn't done that since I was little more than the Beans' age. It was also still damp and raining so I tore the plastic off the bottom of the ancient mattress and used it like a poncho. If anyone had told me what state I would eventually be walking around in on the bike ride up to Sparkleberry Ranch from Tampa I would have probably laughed myself sick or slapped them with something big and heavy. But walk I did … just real slow and ginger and holding onto anything close by that I could reach.

Besides being sore in my more delicate areas it felt like my insides were trying to realign to some alien schematic. I knew it was because the babies were on the outside now and things were trying to move back to where they used to belong but knowing that didn't change the fact that it felt like my insides were dropping out. It was odd being able to draw a full breath too, almost like I was getting too much oxygen for a change and that added to my lightheadedness.

As I explored I found a few useful odds and ends in the surrounding bungalows: a few old enamelware pots and pans; some curtains (old and thin); a few sheets (old, thin, and rotted and mildewed in some places); more plastic from some of the other mattresses; a bottle of Everclear that I decided to use as disinfectant for the Beans' umbilical cords; and a few other little odds and ends to eat with that didn't do a whole lot of good since I didn't have anything to eat. I had to keep resting … and cleaning myself up … and at those times forced myself to drink and eat a few stale peanuts and raisins for protein and sugar.

I was getting shaky and the feeling was scary. It felt like the times I had passed out because of my blood pressure only worse. Ken and I had talked about that the blood pressure problem would likely resolve itself when the baby … now babies … were born but instead I was feeling worse. It was so bad that when it would have been lunch time I had to lie down or fall down and when I got back up I had a nose bleed and stuffy ears. My head literally felt like it was going to explode. I knew that wasn't good I just didn't know what to do about it.

Despite the way I felt, or maybe because of it, I knew I had to persevere. If I stopped I'd give up and then I and the Beans' lives would be forfeit. Several times I caught myself mumbling a little incoherently and realized I was praying. I sure hope God could figure out what I meant because at the time not even I understood what I was saying. I was just about ready to give up when I came upon a bungalow that was about three times the size of the other ones and I realized it must have been the caretaker's cottage. The door was locked and it took a lot of my mental energy to figure out a way in.

Going in a window was out of the question in my shape. I wasn't going to be able to kick anything open. I sure as heck wasn't going to be able to climb to the roof and go down the skylight as I might have risked before I got pregnant. When I stepped back for a better look and nodded my head and continued. I've discovered that people's front doors might be rock solid but their back or side doors were usually much more vulnerable to breaking in. Why people don't realize that I'll never know. Sure enough I was able to use some rocks that had been in the hedge border around the house to pound on the back door knob. Once I had broken the screws and knocked the door knob off I was able to use a stick to pull the latch back out of the strike plate and then push the door in.

I leaned against the door jamb for a moment and then my nose noticed the smell. I stank, it was so bad even I noticed, but the little house smelled … well, I figured there was a body in there but that it had been gone a long time. Sure enough in what was the bed in the lone bedroom there was a corpse. I'm sorry to say I wasn't shocked. Between what I had seen on the bike ride and what I had seen since and the overall condition I was in I just didn't have it left in me to be shocked.

I'm not sure if the corpse was male or female but I decided that while I was sure that anything infectious or gross was long gone … really, really long gone from the appearance of it … I would avoid going too near it, especially now that I had my little Beans to worry for. However, that didn't prevent me from combing the rest of the cottage for anything useful and I got very, very lucky. Or it was providential, I suppose it depends on who you talk to and what they believe.

There were useful things still hanging in the little curtain covered alcove that was used as a clothes closet and linen chest. There were some odds and ends in the closet sized bathroom. And in the kitchen cabinet I found about two dozen cans. A couple of them had gone over … leaked or expanded out of shape and I didn't touch those … and a few had most of the labels eaten away so that I didn't know what was in them but I didn't care. I was shaking so bad that I knew that I needed to get what I could and get back to my own little hidey hole.

I barely made it. I'm not sure what was wrong with me but by the time I got the door shut and bolted against yet another storm all I could do was slide to the floor and start crying. The crying didn't seem to have any purpose. It wasn't the least bit constructive. I've talked to Ken and Mrs. Withrow since then and they suggested it was either emotional shock … something I'm not particularly prone to I don't think … or I was having a bad case of something called the baby blues. Scientifically it is called post partum depression but whatever it was as soon as I started crying Beau and Belle started crying too and that only made me cry harder.

I cried off and on for what was left of the evening. I cried the hardest when I realized I hadn't found a can opener to get into those cans with. Finally the brain fog cleared up enough that I figured out a way to tear into the cans using a butter knife and a hammer. The so-called "knife" was toast afterwards but it I figured that I could pound it straight again … or not as I realized there were several other things that I could use to get into the cans amongst my "finds."

The can I managed to open was sliced peaches. I gagged on the heavy syrup they were in but the sugar helped me clear my head and gave me just enough energy to clean myself and the B&B Beans up so that we could all at least pretend to have a decent sleep. The next morning I was beyond exhausted and knew that I wasn't going anywhere. I didn't even have the energy to do any more exploring or to go get the rest of the canned food. Heck, the only time I even opened the door was to bring in more rain water or to throw nasty water (and latrine stuff) out.

It continued to rain. At the time it was annoying but in reality it was a blessing. There is no way I could have figured out how to get half way decent drinking water any other way. I still hadn't found a way to make fire but towards the end of that day as I became more and more annoyed that nothing was drying after I washed it I started trying to figure out how to make fire.

I even dreamed about fire, all night. Then as I was feeding the two chow hounds around dawn I realized I'd seen a gas grill at the caretaker's cottage. There hadn't been any gas but the grill itself had an electronic ignition. Suddenly my energy level went up and my blue funk started fading. I packed the Beans up and went back to the cottage. Sure enough there was the BBQ. Big problem though was that the battery in the igniter was dead. I nearly went into a funk again and then I gave myself a royal dope slap for giving in to despair. I hadn't done it in a long, long time and I wasn't about to start when I had babies depending on me.

Opening the junk drawer in the cottage I found a package of 9V batteries, probably used for the smoke detectors in each bungalow. And then in the few remaining cleaning supplies I found a roach eaten box of SOS scrubbing pads. I hugged these to myself and giggled like a loony. Good thing my little Beans weren't old enough to realize just how close to crazy their mom really was at that moment.

It felt like it took forever to rinse the soap out of the SOS pad but once I had I was left with a mass of steel wool. I took some old pieces of newspaper I found in several of the bungalows and set up my experiment. Sure enough, dragging the 9V battery through the steel wool created sparks enough that I managed to catch the newspaper on fire. With that tender … and after spending a couple of hours locating some wood that was still relatively dry enough to do anything with … I started a small fire in the little fireplace and I was able to dry out some cloths for diapers for the Beans and some for my own personal needs as well.

That was another day and I knew I couldn't continue like this indefinitely. I was starting to cough off and on, especially in the mornings and new gunk was trying to build up in my chest from all the damp. But I also knew that there was no way I would get very far the way things stood at that moment. I was so hungry that it was hard to think clearly. I had an idea, I just hoped that Rand would forgive me for taking a day or two longer to prepare.

The next morning I got up and grabbed the minnow net I had found in one of the bungalows as well as the old bamboo fishing pole and bobber that had been leaning in the same corner. Sure enough by the dock there were minnows galore and I scooped up all I wanted with relative ease. Then I hooked those puppies on the fishing line and started fishing. You know, it was a whole lot easier to catch those minnows than it was to catch bigger fish but I had three fish by the end of the day that were pretty decent sized and one big fish that had snagged another small fish before I could release it back into the wild. I have no clue what kind of fish they were; they had scales, fins, and googly eyes but they sure as heck cooked up pretty easy after I had cleaned them and discarded the innards some ways into the bushes. I still remembered the growl I had heard. I hadn't heard anything like it since but there was no need to take unnecessary chances.

My energy was slowly coming back and the headaches weren't so bad, though they never went away completely, but overall l still felt like I had fallen off a cliff since Beau and Belle had arrived. I was still bleeding too and I wasn't sure just how normal, or not, that was. Where's the internet when you need it most? None of this stuff had been in Momma's notes. She was done having kids so I guess she didn't think much about it but I sure could have used some of her homegrown commonsense. Heck I would have taken just about anyone at that point because they would have known more than I did.

And that is the night that Beau and Belle decided to get cranky. I don't know who cried more them or me. It is a good thing that zombies aren't real or we would have been toast given the amount of noise we all three made. I'm not sure why the babies were crying. I was even less sure why I was crying. Either way we didn't fall asleep until there was enough light to show it was going to be another overcast day.

Despite the better food quality I started having the shakes again. I was also zoning in and out. I knew that I needed to find people soon and that was a huge admission for me. Without the babies I would have not cared a lick about doing anything but getting back to Rand but with the babies the whole game had changed. My little Beans were more important than my lopsided pride. I needed to let Rand know that I was OK but if I wasn't the one to deliver the message I could live with that … so long as Beau and Belle were OK.

I needed a plan. I needed enough supplies to get home. I needed transportation. Before I could go any further with those three points I needed to know where I was.

I didn't have a clue how to read the stars and even if I had the cloudy weather would have ruined that. I took stock of what I did know … or at least what I thought I knew. I was pretty sure the storm had been in the Gulf. No, I didn't know for certain but the Atlantic just feels different and looks different. Also the rising and setting of the sun put water to the west and land on the east. That told me I was on the west coast of a body of land.

Another assumption I made was that I had washed up in Florida. For one it just felt like Florida. I know that sounds illogical and based on hope more than fact but there were things that made it seem more likely than not. The trees and stuff looked like home. Well, not Live Oak home but like stuff that you would find not too far from there. The trees were definitely the same kind of oaks as I was used to seeing but there were certainly more shore-friendly type plants as well like sea grapes, sea oats, scrub plants and that sort of thing. The birds were different but they were still birds that I was used to seeing when I went to the beach and that sort of thing back in Tampa.

Next I added the architecture of the bungalows and some of the other buildings that I had seen … or the remains of buildings I should say. A lot of them were made of tabby. Tabby is a kind of concrete that is made of sand, shells, and lime ash and it was very popular in Florida for several hundred years … up into the 1900s actually since it is so environmentally friendly and can put up with the Florida weather. And some of the exposed beams in some of the older buildings that I had seen were definitely made of cypress, it is a pretty distinct wood and was all over the place in Florida architecture for a while; even the Ringling mansion in Sarasota has a lot of cypress wood in it. Cypress is supposed to be termite resistant but honestly, I think if a termite wants a nibble of wood it is going to take a nibble of wood and hang whether it is supposed to be termite resistant or not. The floors in the bungalows were terrazzo and that definitely reminded me of Florida.

Mostly what I learned from my detective work was that I needed to make sure before I finalized my plans. I got so tired and I hurt and I had to rest a lot just looking around the little town; if I was wrong and went the wrong direction who knows what kind of trouble I would get in. Having a "good feeling" that I was stranded somewhere along the west coast of Florida didn't mean a hill of beans if I could be more accurate than that. That meant exploring further from my base camp.

I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I'd go look for burnables and try and scout my location at the same time. I wasn't sure it made sense to go back to the wharf area but I knew there was wood there and I needed a fire to try and drive out the dampness from clothes and cloths again even though it over heated the bungalow badly.

Most of the buildings facing the water were trashed … partly from fire though I wasn't sure that was the only thing as there was lots of splintered wood that didn't look like they had been burnt in any way. And the buildings must have been pretty good size as some of the frames looked like a few of the buildings had three or more stories to them. One street over there was no evidence of fire but something sure as heck tore the buildings up … riots, looters, vandals, or something else entirely. I didn't know and didn't particularly care as long as whatever it was left me alone while I was there.

I combed through the area looking for anything that would give me a clue but all of the paper I found was pretty sun bleached or useless. I'd gotten all of the sticks and fallen limbs that I could carry and still manage Beau and Belle safely when I looked over and saw this house that looked really old. I walked over and there was even a historical marker in front of it and bingo: "Second Oldest House on Florida's Entire Gulf Coast … 4th Street, Cedar Key, FL."

I knew where I was at. I even knew the quickest route home. But it most definitely wasn't going to be easy.

I headed back to the little vacation bungalow. You would have thought I would have been relieved but actually I was depressed. Instead of only wondering how far away from home I was now I knew. It wasn't near as bad as it could have been but for all that it might as well have been thousands of miles.

I didn't know how many miles exactly but I knew that it was going to be rough if I couldn't find some way to trade for some help to get home or to get a message home. No doubt about it I was going to have to rely a lot more on faith than I had been doing in a while. I'd been relying on me, on Rand, on Ken, on the memories of my parents … this was something totally different. I'd experienced some awful stuff in my life but nothing quite like this. The stuff in the past left me with only myself to take care of but now I had my two little Beans that were totally reliant on me and I was beginning to wonder if God had really thought things through when he put them in my care.

Was I up for this? Was I strong enough? Was I clever enough to get us home? I went through another round of tears and feeling sorry for myself only made worse when Beau and Belle decided to make it a trio. I kept imagining Rand's face and Austin's. I knew I couldn't give up but I could feel that things were going downhill fast; headaches to heartaches and everything in between.

Having one baby alone is difficult enough, having two babies and trying to do it alone and in conditions that rivaled what Neanderthal man had to deal with just didn't seem like a real good option. I needed others and I needed them quickly. That meant getting out of this ghost town and hunting some up.

First I sat down and thought out my route. First I needed to get from Cedar Key to where it intersected with US27. Route 24 was the main road out of Cedar Key and it went straight to US27; I remember that much from my bike ride from Tampa to Live Oak. Once I got to US27 I could take it north all the way into Live Oak just like I had on that epic ride. Simple right? Wrong.

I spent the next two days trying to find some kind of transportation … bike, wagon, anything. There were several bike shops but they were cleaned out of whole bikes and only bits and pieces were left. In fact finding anything useful in the bungalows – especially the food – was nothing short of a miracle. Cedar Key had been cleaned out and picked over. And that meant carrying everything I would need for my trek on my own person.

Food for the journey was also a problem. I was quickly using up canned goods that I had found and the packaged stuff from the boat was completely gone. I looked around for wild foods to supplement the canned stuff and realized that those sea grapes that I had noticed actually had ripe clusters of fruit on them. I gathered those up, eating some of the tart, acidic fruit raw and then setting some to dry for raisins. I also found acorns; many had worm holes but I found enough that I could soak for use. They were easy to soak in all of the rain that kept coming down.

Next I noticed some cattails growing in the drainage ditches on the sides of the road. I pulled some of the roots and added them to my growing pile of food. I also saw some cabbage palm but I wasn't in any shape to climb trees so no matter how yummy Hearts of Palm salad sounded, it was off the menu. I also saw Poke but it was too far gone for it to be safe to harvest.

My best discovery was a couple of chikasaw plums that had a little bit of fruit left on them in a backyard of one of the older homes in the historic district. The same yard had some herbs that had gotten out of control and I was able to get a few greens to mix with the dandelions that I found here and there and eat as a salad. Everything I found fit on the little kitchenette table but it looked like a banquet to me.

The problem was that I was eating my supplies faster than I could get them together for my road trip. At the end of the next day I had ground all of the acorns – they could have used another soak or two but I didn't have the time – and then made a nasty tasting flat bread with them. With nothing to sweeten the bread with it wasn't going to be my first choice but it would fill the void and travel.

It was still raining, sometimes downpours and sometimes just sprinkling. It was like a weather system was parked over the top of me and trying to make up for the drought months and then some. I didn't dare complain though because otherwise I wouldn't have had any water to drink unless I had somehow found a way to take the salt out of the nasty water near the wharf and at the small beach area.

To try and keep my supplies dry I cut sections of the plastic off of the mattresses then washed the sections. It wasn't like having suran wrap or Ziploc bags but the plastic packets kept stuff drier than it would have otherwise been. While at the beach I found one of those state park kind of signs where it tells you interesting information about an area. Apparently Cedar Key was some kind of big clamming area. They had a bunch of clam farms as a form of aquaculture. Unfortunately I didn't have a clue how to dig clams or how to fix them without making myself sick as a dog; but I did tuck the information away for future reference. I remember going crabbing with my parents but I wasn't in any condition to do it.

I cut a couple of big sections of plastic to make a "tent" and ground cloth to go with the "poncho" I had already manufactured. I gathered up what pieces of "rope" that hadn't fallen apart but mostly had to rely on the stuff that was used as plastic covered clothes line since most of the rope I found had been exposed to the elements and had dry rotted into uselessness. In the caretaker's cottage I found one of those oversized women's purses, the kind that you could practically sleep in if you had to, and that became my pack. It was heavy but I didn't see as I had any choice. I also had a separate bag for "diapers," feminine stuff, and for socks. My feet were constantly wet no matter what I did until I found a pair of men's rubber waders that were so big that I could leave my boots on and wear the waders at the same time. They made me clumsy and slow but it was better than having my feet eat up with raw sores from being soaking wet all the time.

My biggest concern was fire and water. The fire issue I fixed by bringing along all of the 9V batteries and steel wool I had found; a little could go a long way with the right tinder. I also found under the cabinet in one of the bathrooms, way in the back, that the scavengers missed a half jar of Vaseline; that along with some cattail fluff tested out to be really good for what I needed. And just to be on the safe side I bundled some dry kindling that would get a small fire ready for larger pieces of wood.

The water, now that was the biggie. I didn't have a canteen, didn't have anything even approaching what could be a canteen. I couldn't just assume that it would continue to rain. I couldn't run away from the fact that the Beans and I would need water for cleaning up with if we were to stay healthy. I had a five gallon bucket but no way to carry it because the handle was broken. I didn't have any small containers like water bottles; there were either none to be found or merely scraps of what was once a bottle, jug, etc. I was on my last leg as far as ideas went when I saw it.

There was a bicycle rental place on the very edge of the tourist area, right near the beach. No bicycles. No tires. But there were some bike repair pieces including some rims for kiddie bikes. It took me most of a day but I managed to make a "wagon" from four rims, a square of scrap plywood that looked like it had fallen from an old attic access hole, some rods and some other odds and ends off the floor of the bike shop. The rims were a little rusty but some Vaseline helped the axles I created to move fairly well. I made some packing straps out of old fire hose (and wasn't that so not fun to cut to the size that I needed). I used an old pot lid to keep the water in the bucket but the "wagon" wasn't exactly a smooth ride but it did work and that was about all I could say for it which is more than I had before.

I decided that I couldn't afford a day to rest up. My food wasn't going to last but a few more days and my cough had grown considerably worse. I went to sleep as soon as the twins were fed and decided to get up after their dawn feeding was over with. We all cleaned up … relatively speaking … and I loaded everything the best way I could. It was still raining but I didn't see as I had any choice but to move on.

It was very slow going. Puddles covered deep potholes that had developed in the blacktop. I started walking straight down the middle of the road because it was the highest point, had the fewest puddles, and the fewest potholes. It also left me feeling the most vulnerable and exposed, but to what I haven't a clue. There was dead silence except for the rain and the occasional bird or squirrel fussing about the weather.

The twins weren't fussy; they mostly slept. But I had to stop pretty often to feed them. If felt like a milk truck. And I was constantly thirsty despite all of the rain on my face. I wound up putting a cloth over the bucket and letting the rain just go in to try and keep the bucket filled. I'd walk thirty minutes then have to stop to feed the Beans and drink a cup of water. Then I'd walk thirty more minutes, stop and to drink another cup of water. Another thirty minutes after that the Beans would want another drink, etc., etc. Because of this I didn't get far that first day at all.

I made it as far as this little place called Otter Creek but it was dark when I got there and not a soul in sight. I had been keeping my spirits up by imagining that all I would have to do would be to get to a crossroads and someone would magically appear but … nothing. As a matter of fact it was worse than nothing.

Water was piled up everywhere I looked. The soggy ground made leaving the roadway a nightmare. What few buildings had been at the crossroads at one time were destroyed, some of them looked like it had happened recently. There were big oaks down all over the place. Tree debris was everywhere, so was glass and other bits and pieces. Old rusted out hulks of cars started appearing here and there pushed off to the side reminding me of what I'd found on my original bike ride.

I was too tired to cry or think at that point and it was too dark to do much exploring so I set up camp in the lee of a half destroyed building. It kept all but the hardest rain storms off of us and for the rest I hung the sheet of mattress plastic. It was a miserable night and I began to doubt the wisdom of what I was trying to do but by the time I'd fed the Beans their dawn meal and packed everything up I knew that I hadn't really been any better off in Cedar Key than I was in Otter Creek.

I told myself, "Stop it. You are that much closer to home and to Rand and Austin and to dry clothes and your own stuff and to the babies' stuff. Get a grip, put your waders on, and a get a move on." I wished I had been able to get some kind of reward for that perseverance. The further I went on Route 24 the more problems I had with water and debris on the road. And then I saw my first sign of people … only it wasn't a good sign.

Hammered into a tree that was across the road was a sign. "ROAD FLOODED FROM HURRICANE BETWEEN HERE AND BRONSON. CHUNKY POND AREA WORSE. CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK."

Great. I nearly did sit down and have a cry at that point. Instead I sat down, fed the twins and myself and tried to figure out what to do. Really I didn't have much choice. I back tracked to the last turnoff which turn right and after a couple of miles of back roads, some of which were only lime rock covered, I came to a barely still standing sign that told me I was at CR343. The water was up to my knees and there was no way I was going to be able to go north on the county road. It was still raining and I couldn't risk getting into deeper water.

I went south on CR343 until I found some high and dry ground under some large oaks that kept most of the rain off and set up camp. There was no fire that night and even if there had been what happened in the middle of the night would have made it a wasted one. I woke up at Belle's cries to find us lying in a couple of inches of water. I was so tired I hadn't even noticed as it had crept in. I momentarily panicked until I realized Beau wasn't crying simply because he wasn't awake yet. Belle was another story, she wasn't fond of being wet – something I'd already had trouble dealing with – and it was all I could do to gather our stuff and try and get further down the road in the dark without falling and killing us all.

There were things bumping into my legs as I plowed through the water in the pitch dark and I was glad I couldn't see what they were because a few of them were bloated and smelled. I don't know if they were animal or human but neither one appealed to me so I did my best to slog through and pull the wagon without thinking about it too much.

As the sun rose, so did the water. The rain was horrible that day. It had a lot of wind in it and that on top of everything else made pulling the wagon a nightmare. Belle cried off and on all day and so did I. I was so tired and getting hungry. I had hoped to supplement my food with scavenged stuff but this world was a universe away from what it had been a year ago. There just wasn't anything. I spent that night up on the porch of a long deserted house … along with a couple of rude opossums that didn't think much of me despite both of us carrying our babies around to keep them out of the water.

The next morning I had a really bad attack of coughing; so bad in fact that I actually gave myself a bloody nose. That if nothing else had told me that I needed to get going because I was not going to die and leave the Beans to be possum food if I didn't. I had been slogging along, practically catatonic just trying to put one foot in front of the other when suddenly I looked up and there were other people around me, all of 'em looking just about as bad as I did.

I was losing myself at that stage and I can't tell then next little bit clearly if my life depended. Basically I had managed through dumb luck or a Guiding Hand to wind up at what had once been the Williston Municipal Airport. The problem was that it was now a refugee camp. No one was allowed in or out of Williston and they weren't taking refugees in at all … not even a woman with brand new babies who obviously needed some help and badly.

I did manage to get one young group of national guardsmen to feel sorry for me and they hid me in their transport so that I could get through town and to the other side of Williston onto US27/US41. They had a survivor list they said they would put my name on when they were off duty and they all gave me a piece of their rations which could have gotten them in some bad hot water. One young boy, couldn't have been much older than Austin, was nearly crying because they couldn't do more for me but I told his Sergeant, who reminded me of Bill for some reason, that if they could just get word to my husband that I was OK and that I was making my way home the same way I'd come the first time that was all that I cared about.

I know in the old days people would have thought that was a cruel thing to have done but this isn't the old days. Williston was overrun and they told me dysentery was running rampant even in the cleanest households. They did what they could that was within their power and even risked getting in trouble and losing their stripes. Trying to pack me and the twins in with the rest of the refugees could have caused more harm than good under those circumstances. They said violence was bad in the camps surrounding the town so they took me outside of the last checkpoint into the city by about five miles and dropped me off right near Raleigh. They'd have some explaining to do at the fuel depot but the Sergeant told me not to think about it that he'd deal with it one way or the other. I'd rarely seen such a miserable bunch of men … most of them not even men yet but just boys … as that group that watched me walk away that day.

I had to put them out of my head, especially the kid that look like a red headed version of Austin in my imagination, and think of my original route; seven miles from Raleigh to Archer and then another ten to Newberry. I traveled that in a day coming up on the bike but I would be every bit of two this time. I remembered that the last time I had been in Newberry I'd had trouble with rain too and that something about the town had made me scared. But then I decided I would worry about Newberry only after I made it to Archer.

Wish I could say that everything went smoothly but it didn't. I was so tired that I got careless and right outside of Archer the wagon tipped over and I lost all the clean water I had in the bucket. I also went down at the same time soaking the three of us and all of my supplies. The acorn bread was history, not that it had been very appetizing but it was a way to fill the void without have to stop and cook. Luckily for me the stuff the guardsmen had given to me came sealed in plastic.

I could have gone further, though not by much, but instead made camp in a building off the road in Archer. All of the buildings had obviously been stripped of anything useful but they hadn't been able to take the fireplace. I pulled out my pot and started boiling rain water as soon as I was able to get a decent fire built. I hung up all of our wet stuff and then after a dinner of canned fruit cocktail and a little bit of jerky I gave the twins a much needed sponge bath, cleaned their umbilical cords which were trying to fall off by then despite the near constant dampness and let them loll about au natural in the first mosquito free space we'd had since leaving Cedar Key.

I cleaned and refilled my five gallon bucket and cleaned the straps on it and then took my own sponge bath. It was nice feeling clean but it didn't last long. I was still bleeding and the heat and humidity had me sweating again in no time. I did what I could for my little Beans, fed them, and then made the best nest I could manage so that we could go to sleep.

Actually I went to sleep thinking that maybe I would just hole up in Archer for a few days and hope for the best. That changed real quick in the middle of a hot, muggy, and terrifying night while I listened to a pack of feral dogs try to get into the closet I quickly pulled the twins and our gear into. Every time Beau and Belle cried the dogs would start scratching and banging to get in. It was several hours into the afternoon of the next day before I felt sure enough that they were gone to even crack the door open and see. I didn't even bother changing any of us … and we all needed it … before getting on down the road through the muck and mud as fast as I could. I didn't stop for several miles and by that time I was puking what little was left in my guts.

I had also started to bleed more heavily and figured I would have to slow down or stop all together fairly soon or risk something … bad … happening, whatever that bad might be, which is something I didn't want to contemplate.

A house well off the road provided a temporary haven. Like all other buildings I had seen it had been stripped down to the bare bones but I was at least able to secure it enough for some privacy. I had only meant to rest a few moments but I woke, not sure how long the Beans had been crying and snuffling for food, to the deep dark of night. I would have cried in frustration if I had had the strength. But it was water under the bridge and I didn't see any way to undo what had been done.

And speaking of water under the bridge, I had to completely bypass Newberry because it was flooded. The rain wasn't near as heavy as it had been, mostly an uncomfortable drizzle, but whatever had come through before had laid waste to this area, just like it had in others. The drains were either clogged or full. The roadside ditches had filled and overflowed and turned roads and fields into streams and lakes. I couldn't risk it and wound up detouring to the west and through the residential areas. I didn't get far.

I have to admit I was tired and weak and coughing so badly it literally felt like I had cracked a rib. Then off in the distance I saw a small church. The sanctuary had seen a fire up near the pulpit but the vestibule of the building was still intact. The building was up off the ground and gave me a sense of protection I knew that didn't make sense. I ate my last can of food … fruit cocktail again … and drank all the water I wanted. I washed us up as best I could and hid us in the women's bathroom rather than lay on the moldy carpet out in the vestibule itself.

I was done in. I hurt … in my guts and in my chest. I was out of food though I still had water. My head felt like it was about to explode and when I had a nose bleed on top of it all I just sort of lost it. I told God that I was done. I'd come this far and He was going to have to provide me a golden chariot … or just a plain old wooden one … to get the rest of the way home. There wasn't any blame, I was just telling Him like I saw it and that I'd given it all I had and that I didn't have any more to give. I stopped even asking for my own rescue and just wanted Beau and Belle to make it home to Sparkleberry Ranch. I told God that Rand needed that at least. I told Him that He'd always said He wouldn't put more on us than we could bear and I was telling Him I couldn't bear any more and that I figured Rand couldn't bear not knowing and that Austin needed some looking after by Him too.

I must have mumbled and talked off and on all night. I didn't realize it at the time but I had started to run a fever. This on top of everything else was sapping what little strength I had left. I watched the sun come up but didn't seem to have any desire to move. I was in a fog. I watched the sun go down as well, only drinking water.

Part of me knew that I needed to move, that I needed to find people but I just couldn't summon the urgency that I should have been able to.

I really don't know how long it was before I heard the voices of men. I kind of remember the Beans had been crying but I couldn't draw them to me for comfort. I only vaguely remember boots on the steps outside the building but nothing beyond that.


	102. Chapter 101 - THE END

Chapter 101

"Memaw! Memaw! What happened? Who was wearing the boots?!"

Kiri looked over at Joy and then at her husband, still deep in his thoughts. "No need to shout child. I'm sitting right here."

Joy, still impatient, knew her Memaw meant business so she tried to ask more quiet and ladylike, "But who was it Memaw? Was it Peepaw?"

A deep sigh preceeded Kiri's answer. "No child. It was Uncle Ram and Ken."

"Ken? Pastor Ken?! The really old man that sometimes gives the eulogies at the Old Timers' funerals?"

Rand snorted in suppressed laughter, Kiri was less amused. "Joy … would you like me to set you to peeling potatoes from now until Juvember?"

Joy thought, "Memaw knows I hate peeling dirty ol' taters." But all she said was, "Uh, no ma'am."

"Then think before you speak. Lord willing you'll get to enjoy aging too and then we'll see how much you like some pretty young thing calling you an old timer."

Rand, not quite as deep in thought as Kiri believed muttered, "Seems to me the pot is calling the kettle black."

This time it was Joy who had to hide a laugh as her Memaw gave her Peepaw the evil eye. Everybody knew that Memaw could go off like a Tallahassee bottle rocket with no warning. It was fun watching Peepaw and Uncle Ram tease her about it. 'Course they were the only ones brave enough to set her off on purpose. However, still impatient for the rest of the story she asked, "Where was Peepaw?"

"Your Aunt Missy's first husband Bill and some other men held him back."

"Why? Didn't he want to see you?"

Kiri glanced at Rand again who had gone pale. "Hush Joy; what a thing to say. Of course he wanted to rush in and see me, but you're old enough to realize not every story ends like a fairy tale. Sometimes bad things happen. Those men were trying to protect your Peepaw. They didn't know if it was me or what kind of shape I'd be in if it was."

In truth the men had feared the worst when they'd first laid eyes on the still and silent figure huddled around the crying babies and they worried for Rand's sanity nearly as much they had feared for Kiri's safety. There was a lot of temporary relief when Ken had found she was still breathing. Ken and Ram did their best to examine Kiri and clean her up before Rand rushed in and got his first look at her, but it still shocked him so bad his knees gave out. Rand tried to gather her into his arms as he started calling her name but Ken pulled him back.

"Easy now. Rand, we need to get her into the wagon and be careful doing it and then get her back to your place as soon as we can. There isn't much I can do for her out in the middle of nowhere like this. And we need to find some goat milk for those babies."

"Why isn't she moving? What's wrong with her? Those guardsmen said she seemed OK, just tired. What …?"

"She's wore thin son. We don't know what the circumstances around the birth was, if she was alone or had help. She looks like she's been on short rations. We don't even know how long she's been on the road but one of the babies still has its umbilical cord barely hanging on so the birth itself couldn't have been that long ago."

Rand gulped and whispered as he took in the noisy duo, "So it was twins just like you worried."

Ken nodded. "Fraternal; boy and a girl. Girl is the one making the most noise. They're small but seem healthy given the circumstances. It is Kiri we need to focus on, she's more fragile than the babies are. Her blood pressure is too high for my comfort and her lungs are congested. I want to break out those supplies the ladies packed, get Kiri and the babies settled in the wagon, and travel as far as we can tonight."

Of course Kiri didn't find any of this out for nearly two weeks. She'd been unconscious most of that time and it took her several days to convince the men that she wasn't as frail as she appeared at the time. It was also then that she learned that the guardsmen who had given her a lift through Williston had been instrumental in her rescue. As soon as they had learned that kidnapping and human trafficking was involved they had used that as leverage to get permission to begin grid by grid search efforts with another team despite what was going on in Williston.

The guardsmen had met up with Ram's men and were on their second day of looking when Rand arrived with the others and it was the morning after that that someone had heard crying and the rest as they say was history.

Joy asked, "But Memaw, you got better right?"

"Good Heavens child, do you think I'd be sitting here if I hadn't?" Kiri regretted her words when she saw Rand wince out of the corner of her eye. She changed gears and said brightly, "All's well that ends well and this corn is finally finished. Now go on out and get a couple of the boys to come cart it all to the summer kitchen. It isn't going to can itself and your mother promised to give me a hand and get it started after I got it shucked."

Joy, knowing that she'd learned all she was going to be allowed to for a while said, "Yes ma'am" before doing as her Memaw had told her.

After the girl left Kiri got up and walked over to the door to make sure Joy didn't get side tracked; then she shook her corn silk covered apron off outside before returning and closing the door behind her. Rand looked up at the sound and then let out a surprised laugh after reading the look on his wife's face.

"Joy's comment get to you ol' woman?"

"Who are you calling ol' woman you old man?" Kiri sassed as she eased onto Rand's lap, careful of the leg he had broken ten years ago falling from the hay loft. It still occasionally gave him trouble.

Rand smiled and pulled her more firmly against him, not letting her be as careful as she was wont to treat him when he got like this. "Sure puts a crimp in things will all the kids back home and under foot," Rand said as he wrapped his still lean and muscular arms around his wife. She wasn't as petite and willowy as she had been when they first married but long days in the garden had kept her trim despite all of the children she'd given him.

"Humph. Didn't seem to crimp you any last night," Kiri twinkled wickedly.

Rand grinned back just as wickedly, thankful once again that love and time had taken care of much of her shyness. "Why thank you kindly Mrs. Joyner," he said tipping an imaginary hat.

"You're welcome Mr. Joyner." Kiri smiled, she being thankful that his drift into melancholy seemed to be over. "You doing OK?"

"Mmmm hmmm, good food and a good woman makes for a good day." At Kiri's raised eyebrow Rand said a little more seriously, "It was finding your old desk and journal. Caught me off guard. Memories kinda swamped me there for a while."

"That's years gone Rand. We survived it and have lived a lot of life since then," Kiri said as she cupped his grizzled cheek with her work roughened hand.

He sighed and set the rocker moving gently, "I know it Babe. And don't think I'm not forever grateful for every one of those days."

"Humph, well there are a few I could have done without. Remember when all of 'em came down with diphtheria? Or when Beau and Caleb went with Ram and caught polio down in Miami and had to be quarantined outside of town? When Francine …?"

"I said every one of them and I meant every one of them … both good and bad. I'll take a bad day with you over a good day without you every time."

They had just tilted their heads for a kiss when two of Austin's sons banged open the door and barreled through. "Memaw, Joy said you wanted us to … eeewwwww! Daaaddddd, they're doing it again!"

Austin stuck his head around the door and then started laughing as he caught sight of a very red-faced Kiri who was trying to get out of Rand's lap. Problem was that Rand wasn't cooperating and was making it worse by laughing too. Austin prayed silently that he and his bride would still be playing and catching a smooch when they reach his parents' age.

"Honestly, you'd think I raised a bunch of heathens the way y'all act sometimes," Kiri grumped after she finally managed to extricate herself and get her clothes and hair straightened enough to pass in polite company. "And stop encouraging them Rand. You're even worse than they are." And of course that only set both Rand and Austin to laughing even more.

After catching his breath but still chuckling Austin said, "Momma, Missy and Belle are coming down the road and they told me to warn you that Beau radioed that he'd be at the train depot by dinner time and would appreciate it if someone could leave a wagon or truck for him and his brood and maybe a snack for everyone since they were only allowed to board with one picnic hamper."

Kiri went into a tizzy. "Oh Lord Rand, where are we going to put 'em all? I mean I'm glad that Missy finally agreed to come for a visit but I didn't expect for her to bring all eight of her grandchildren. How many does that make now?"

Austin snorted then asked, "Need a calculator Momma?"

Austin was a grown man with children of his own but he still stopped when his mother gave him "that" look. Kiri pulled out her note pad, "Let's see. You and Camille and your six. Beau and Rachel and their four … Austin can you make sure that Beau doesn't try to talk her into sleeping in the wagon? The last thing we need is for her to go into labor and have that baby under a palmetto like she did the last one. My stars and garters, I nearly swallowed my teeth when I found out about it."

Austin was thinking the same thing and praying thankfully that the few times he'd gotten an itchy foot to go exploring Camille had been content to stay home with the children. Rachel on the other hand was at least as adventuresome as Beau and they'd dragged their brood all across the country into all kinds of craziness.

Unaware of Austin's thoughts Kiri continued, "Belle and Stevie and their four will split their time between us and Laurabeth and Ron. I think Stevie is finally going to accept his father deeding him over that land to work. I sure hope he does, it'll be so nice to have Belle closer to home and if Stevie gets that position at the hospital … Anywho, next comes Caleb and Cynthia and their two. Then Daniel and Yolanda … and if I'm not mistaken their last letter hinted at some special news from them, maybe the adoption finally went through. And Everett and Penny; I expect they'll want the baby to sleep in their room so Rand we need to bring the cradle down from storage. Add in Francine and Charlie and their two rapscallions … if I catch them swinging in my plum trees again I know who can help shovel the manure into the methane holding tank. Georgie and Caroline will have their three stay in their bedroom because they're too young to sleep with the older kids. Henry and Joyce will come over during the day but I expect they'll have to get back to the farm at night so Henry can help that old grump of a father in law he has …"

"Kiri …," Rand warned pointing his head towards the children.

"Don't you Kiri me, Rand Joyner. The children know exactly how cantankerous that old coot is. He takes all the fun out of every children's program the Ladies' Auxiliary has put on for the last year with his starched up judgementalism. Last one he nearly had poor Joy in tears simply because she got Lamentations and Leviticus mixed up."

"Man's had a hard life Momma," Austin said trying to keep his mother from going off on one of her tangents.

"Man makes his life hard Austin. How such a sweet thing like Joyce could turn out the way she did with a father like she has I'll never know; honestly, she reminds me of Alicia when we were all younger. And he doesn't show the least bit of appreciation for the fact that Henry has turned that farm around. He just sits back and enjoys the fruit of Henry's labor like he is entitled to it. That man is a real Laban through and through."

"What does that mean Memaw?" Joy asked.

"Oh," Kiri said, realizing that little pitchers do have big ears. "Well, read your Bible Joy and you'll find out. And until you do you just keep family talk to yourself. You hear?"

"Aw Memaw," Joy lamented. "You boys do the same. Family talk is family talk. I'd like to know I can trust you and speak my mind around you without having to treat you like a bunch of toddlers."

The boys nearly stood at attention in pride that they were getting acknowledged to be old enough to hear and be trusted with family talk.

Kiri returned to her counting almost without missing a beat. "Then Isabell and Archie and their three. That just leaves Janet and Johnnie and Ram said that he'll go kidnap them from that college if he has to but they'll come back for Pioneer Day this year and that is all there is to it. I doubt he'll have to kidnap them though. Janet called to see if we minded if she invited that boy she is so partial to and … Oh Lord, I've lost count again."

Austin laughed and said, "Don't worry about it Momma. The boys and I put up the canvas tents and if we run out of room the kids can roost in the trees with the chickens."

At the suddenly intent look on the two younger boys' faces Kiri just shook her head and looked at Rand and Austin silently telling them to check for wood rot in the old tree house because that is where several of them would wind up if she didn't miss her guess.

Finally winding down she shooed everyone out of the house and set to putting everything back to rights. She couldn't remember the mess being quite this bad even when her ducklings were all young and rowdy. Of course they weren't stair steps like some women had. It took three years after Beau and Belle were born before she caught pregnant again and she'd lost that one; and the one right after that one too. Rand had sectioned off a piece of the farm for a cemetery in an area that never flooded but which wasn't good for farming and buried both little bodies and commissioned concrete markers never realizing how quickly the plot would grow.

Uncle George had died of a sudden heart attack not two days after they'd buried the second little lost one, and then a few months later Janet had some kind of seizure right after she'd gotten engaged to that boy from Branford and died in her sleep. And not three months after that Bill had accidentally been killed by some boys that had been arguing over a girl at one of the old market days; he'd died before he'd even realize he'd been shot. Missy had been pregnant again and lost her husband and her baby on the same day; buried them in the same plot next to the other graves still so new the grass hadn't covered them yet. Those had been hard times.

She and Rand had just come to accept and be content with the fact that they'd only have the twins when she started banging them out like she'd never had problems, surprising everyone herself included. Every child was another miracle, especially Janet and Johnnie who came when she had supposedly been in menopause for two years. Hadn't Rand laughed over that particular practical joke God had played on them; twins on both ends.

Then diphtheria had ripped through the community and Brendan and Alicia had laid one of their babies to rest with the others. Ram and his bride had three little ones in the cemetery and had given up hope having any children together. Then Ram had gotten that contract with that new Shands hospital and one of the doctors there discovered she had a cyst and once it had been removed they were eventually able to have two, a little boy and a little girl.

Missy never really recovered from Bill's death but she did eventually remarry to a kind man who helped to raise Bill's children as if they were his own. After Bill's death Ram and Brendan went into partnership and took over the Trade Shack since Missy couldn't stand the place because of all of its memories. Missy's second husband, Robert, had been a business contact of Ram's who ran an aquaculture farm in Ocala. When they married Missy moved her family to his place and seemed to finally come to terms with things and find peace and contentment. Because of this Rand and Kiri always had a special place in her hearts for Robert.

Their feelings for Ron Harbinger were just as strong though it had taken years to really get to where they were these days. Ron and Rand are like brothers and have reached a point where they can look back on the past and if not laugh about the way things used to be, at least acknowledge that God had a purpose not always easily understood by mere mortals. Beau and Bell had been almost a year old when Ron finally got the courage to acknowledge that he'd fallen in love with LauraBeth. When he'd spoken to Uncle George the man had laughed and said, "About flaming time! I knew you was hard headed boy, but you's just about as blind as a bat too."

Ron never seemed to cease to be amazed that LauraBeth returned his feelings. You can still catch him, all these years later, with an arrested expression on his face as he looks at her when he doesn't think anyone is looking. They named one of their daughters Julia and not a few people were surprised by it. LauraBeth had told Kiri once, "Good grief, you'd think people would have more important things to worry about than what Ron and I decide to call our children … and what business it is of theirs I don't know." Kiri thought she understood, it was their way of commemorating the young woman whose sacrifice gave them both the chance to live on for Stevie's sake when it would have been easier to simply have given up.

After Uncle George's death Ron and LauraBeth moved back to the old Harbinger farm off of River Road. All the family came together and helped to repair and rebuild the place. LauraBeth signed her portion of Uncle George's farm over to Brendan and Alicia in exchange for enough cattle, feed, and seed to get Ron's farm back up and running. The old Winston place was farmed by both families but was always understood to be in trust for Stevie when he was ready.

Charlene eventually married and had a family of her own but it was only after she'd gone on a few adventures of her own … surreptitiously guided and watched over by Ram's young "brother in law." Charlene and her husband now operate one of the trading hubs outside of Tampa though they travel frequently back to see everyone now that their children are grown.

Mick could have had part of the farm but instead chose to join the military. He did two tours and saw quite a bit of action during the Sino-American war but after being injured in a plane crash and then losing the hearing in one ear from a grenade exploding near his position he returned home to marry a local girl. They still run the postal office though it is their sons rather than Mick that do most of the local courier work and express deliveries.

Momma O and Mrs. Withrow both outlived Uncle George by several years, but even those illustrious ladies eventually had to meet their Maker. Momma O was more than ready, having suffered a long time from the arthritis that crippled her so that she couldn't even go out and about. Mrs. Withrow passed away in church. Everyone thought the old dear had taken a brief nap as had become her habit but when she didn't get up to signal that it was time for the ladies to tend to the afternoon meal the Pastor stopped, and then after checking on her called for a moment of silence as everyone shed a few tears.

Kiri thought, "The years have passed so fast. Half my grandchildren think it isn't much more than a bed time story when I tell them how I walked and then rode a bike all the way from Tampa to Sparkleberry Ranch. They look at the stories of the time right after the pandemic the same way kids of my generation looked at the stories of the wild west and the wagon trains and have as little understanding of what really went on to survive."

She swept up the last errant corn silk and then twitched the curtains straight before looking around for something else that needed doing. When nothing presented itself quickly enough she glanced at her old journal and decided to read the last page before putting the dog eared old thing away in her cedar chest so that Rand wouldn't worry at it any more.

I don't remember the wagon ride home at all. Don't remember the next week or so to be honest. The first thing I do remember is Rand's voice in my ear telling me that I couldn't die because I hadn't even told him what I'd named the babies. For some reason I was able to grab that thought and hold on and eventually I was able to say "Beans." It was another few hours of oblivion before I had the energy to wake up enough to say, "Beau and Belle … our little B&B Beans."

For some reason everyone that heard that over the next couple of days found it hysterically funny. Mostly I guess it was just relief that I'd drawn back from dying. I saw so many tears from people that I never expected to see them from that I'm embarrassed to even write it down, it seems such a private thing. Rand and Ram have been the worst; both are nearly smothering me with their love and over protectiveness.

I finally managed to get Ram to lighten up a bit but Rand is another story. I'm really worried about him; he's not acting like himself at all. 'Course I don't feel much like my old self either. Maybe there are things that happen in life that just change you; this certainly seems like it could be one of them for both of us. For Austin too, he's lost that little boy look that he'd just gotten back after I was finally able to feed him up. He and Woofer have become like little guards. There was a fly in the twins' room yesterday and Austin was totally outraged. He and Woofer made more of a mess trying to catch the fly than the fly ever would have done on its own but I didn't have the heart to get on to them. I guess it is just going to take a while for all of us to get used to feeling safe again.

Ram finally convinced the Navy that he was on the up and up and was able to find out that the other pregnant women had arrived back in port ahead of the storm and that all were doing well and had been reunited with their family. They had thought that both the sailor and I had been lost at sea.

He also found out who "she" was for me … the "she" that the sailor had told me to tell he was sorry. "She" was Delores Carruthers Douglas, sister of Petty Officer Third Class Caleb Carruthers. He was sorry because he wouldn't be able to make it to her wedding and walk the bride down the aisle. Ram made sure she got her brother's dog tags and in return brought me back a letter telling me how grateful she was that I had taken care of her brother's last request and let her know what a hero he was.

I cried a bit and told Rand that I was the one that was grateful. Rand said that we could make Caleb Beau's middle name if I wanted to but it doesn't seem right somehow. Maybe we'll name the next little boy we have Caleb but I won't mention that to Rand yet. Rand is so careful of me we might not have any more kids at this rate. I tried to tell him that it doesn't seem so bad in hindsight but he just shudders. I guess we'll just have to see who will have their way this time. It isn't like I'm looking to get pregnant again too soon really and there are so many things that need doing. I just don't want to give up on the idea the way he seems to.

The hurricane, I don't think it has been named yet since the Meteorological Society is kind of defunct, bounced up the west coast making landfall several times before swinging east and sweeping across Florida and ripping itself apart as it traveled into Georgia and basically followed the Appalachian trail northward until it was just a tropical depression up passed the Blue Ridge Parkway. Ram said roadways have been destroyed making it imperative (his word, not mine) that new trade routes be found.

Ram has been trying to get Rand to focus on the future instead of mired in the present that seems to worry him so. This coming January and February we are going to plant a new orchard. We'll start with Hood pears, persimmons, and figs and if those do well we'll branch out into other varieties. Ram says he can create a market down south for our deciduous fruit with an even exchange for citrus and other exotics and that what we don't want we could then trade up north for things that are harder for us to grow like some grains or we could get some more seed potatoes or the like.

I'm running out of energy again and I have to get some sleep. I plan on resting up the next few days and then I'm going to Market Day on Saturday. I am not letting Rand talk me out of it again. I want to get out. I want to show our babies off. I've got a list as long as my arm of things I want to trade for including some seeds for this coming garden season and maybe some starts for a new flower bed. I also realized I don't have near enough diapers and clothes for the babies; about half of what I need to be honest which makes sense because I doubled the number I expected to have.

I still am not sure why Ken and Rand didn't tell me they expected me to have twins. Their reasons sound OK but on the other hand a little warning would have been nice. I tried to gloss over how scared I had gotten when the pains had come on me the second time but Rand still got so gray I thought he was going to fall over into his oatmeal after I let it slip while answering some of Ken's questions. I finally just told them from here on out if they have a suspicion that something is going on inside my body I'd appreciate an honest warning.

That's not the only thing that hasn't made sense to me. I'm still wondering why God let things happen the way they did and why that sailor had to die so that I and the babies might live. I'm trying to find the sense in the senseless. What was all of this for? Is this the worst we will ever experience? Was this some kind of experience that is supposed to teach me what is really important? Or to prepare me for even harder times ahead?

I'm trying to put my thoughts in order and one of things that seems the most ironic is that Rand and I celebrated one year of marriage yesterday. I remembered right off but I hadn't known how to ask if he remembered. I guess we both danced around about it for a while and then I had one of those silly crying fits that seem to still come at me out of the blue. Rand wanted to go get Ken but I managed to stop him and then blurted out about our anniversary and how I was upset that I couldn't even seem to find the strength to make his breakfast like I used to and then fell apart even more as I asked him if it bothered him that I'd gone completely useless on him.

That took him aback and I guess he is starting to see that sitting around doing nothing is helping me a whole lot less than he thought it was. I can't just sit and do nothing because my thoughts climb into the hamster wheel in my head and wind up going in circles so fast I have a meltdown.

He seems to be accepting that he's got a problem too but I'm not sure if he realizes how bad it is yet. I have some healing yet to do and I guess he does too. The last few weeks has seen us both taking turns thinking the worst but instead of it being the beginning of the end as we had feared, it has turned out to be the only the end of the beginning for us all.

And there go the Beans again, singing for their supper. I'm glad because I was getting kind of sore. This motherhood thing is turning out to be both easier and harder than I ever expected it to be.

Kiri laughed in spite of herself realizing that she'd gotten so busy she'd never finished the journal. Shaking her head she said, "You didn't even have a clue yet that you'd said a mouth full. Good Heavens, it is hard to believe I was ever that young."

"What?" Rand asked, coming up behind her.

She turned and stepped into his embrace that could still both excite and bring her comfort after all these years. "You married a very silly young thing. She was so clueless."

"We both were. I think it is supposed to be that way. If we had known what life would hand us over the years …"

Kiri shook her head. "I don't mean that. Not precisely anyway. The innocence I can understand, even appreciate in hindsight." She stopped and just shook her head again.

"What?" Rand asked again. Even after all of these years sometimes the only thing that worked was simple patience until she could string her thoughts together enough to share them.

"We could have missed this."

"Missed what?"

"This. All of it. I remember who I used to be Rand. I had a chip on my shoulder the size of the old Mt. Rushmore carving. You remember what it used to look like, how big it used to be. Same for the chip on my shoulder. I don't even know where I would have ended up … how I would have ended up … if you hadn't come into my life."

Rand gently kissed her forehead, "I feel the same way. Always have, always will. God smiled on me the day I came to in that wheelbarrow. Even upside down I could tell you were something else," he said with a tickle.

"Oh you," she smiled. "Lordy, look at us, we'll be embarrassing the kids again if we aren't careful." She decided to put some safe distance between them and then said, "I made blackberry jam cake and forgot to bring it out at lunch. You hungry?"

"Always."

Kiri just shook her head at his double meaning. "Rand Joyner … honestly," she laughed.

"What?" Rand asked a little too innocently not to know exactly what she was laughing at. Then he caught her to him again and said, "We survived."

"Yes we did."

"Gonna keep on surviving for as long as we've got."

"Yes we are."

He squeezed her tightly and said, "Together."

"Is there any other way?" she asked squeezing back just as firmly.

And they did … through the good times and the bad … together … for a good many more years after that …

 **THE END**


End file.
